Tom Cordes
Fabian Fuchs
Peter Gansler
Rolf Gölz
Edwig van Hooydonk
Peter Winnen
Marco van der Hulst
Gino van Hooydonk
Jan Raas has contracted
twenty professional
cyclists for this year's
cycle racing season.
Thumbnail sketches of
nineteen of these
sportsmen follow below,
listed in alphabetical
order. The twentieth,
Martin Kokkelkoren,
will be strengthening
the ranks of the Buckler
team from the first
of May.
Frans Maassen
Ludo de Keulenaer
Wiebren Veenstra
Gerrit de Vries
Noël Segers
Jan Mattheus
Eric Vanderaerden
Patrick Tolhoek
Toine Poels
Gerrit Solleveld
Jelle Nijdam
HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NR. 24
We proudly present.
PAGE 6
At the beginning of the cycle racing
season Tom Cordes showed that he
is in superb form. His wins inclu
ded the Tour of Valencia.
Turning professional and win
ning races straight away is only set
aside for the chosen few. Tom Cor
des is one of those few: his first
prof season had hardly started in
1989 when he booked a stage win
in Spain's Tour of Valencia. One
year later he even came first in the
overall classification in the same
stage race. Cordes had already tas
ted success in his amateur days. In
1985 he was world road racing
champion in the junior category
and in the following year he gained
a world champion medal for the
100 kilometres team race against
the clock. Cordes has proved he's a
cyclist with talent and perseveran
ce.
Swiss-born Fabian Fuchs had
his biggest success in 1988. He
won the William Tell Grand Prix
over a difficult course which
mainly runs through the Swiss
Alps. Fuchs, an all-round racing
cyclist, does more than just act as
a 'domestique' or helper in stage
races and classics. In his first year
as a professional (1987) he took
part in the Tour de France. Fuchs
hopes to be there again this year.
Peter Gansler showed his cyc
ling talent at an early age when he
became German junior champion.
As a professional, he grew into a
valuable assistant for his pal Rolf
Gölz. Gansler is a racing cyclist
who makes his own interests enti
rely subordinate to those of his
team. Sheltering his teammates
against the wind for hours, doing
pick-up work behind the main
bunch, etc. An essential man in
any team.
Residing in Monaco, this Ger
man is an outstanding sprinter and
one of the world's top cyclists. Not
only can he make a good showing
on the flat stretches, but he's also a
force to be reckoned with in hilly
terrain and in the lower mountain
categories. Gölz doesn't really feel
at home racing at altitudes above
1,500 metres. That's why he
doesn't feature much in the overall
classification in stage races like the
Tour de France. But in shorter
races lasting several days he's often
proved his strength as a winner.
Rolf Gölz is one of the 'protected'
riders in the team.
The 23-year-old Belgian has
built up a lot of routine and it's
impossible to imagine the profes
sional circuit without him. Van
Hooydonk is a man with strong
willpower. In 1988 during the Tour
of Flanders he was left behind on
the notorious Geraardsbergen hill.
He resolved that that would never
happen again; he included the hill
in his training circuit and last year
he won the Tour of Flanders by
breaking away from the pack on the
same roads he'd been training on.
Last year Edwig also got a taste
of the high mountains during the
Dauphiné Liberé and the Tour de
France. Outsiders were disappoin
ted at his results, but Jan Raas has
good hopes. He is convinced that
Edwig van Hooydonk has still not
peaked in his hill-climbing capaci
ties.
Right from his debut as a profes
sional Peter Winnen has always
been the typical rider for stage
races. The longer the race lasted,
the better he performedTo date he
has been classed four times within
the first ten in the Tour de France,
the high spot being his third pla
cing in 1983Peter Winnen's chief
weapon is his talent for climbing.
And that is specifically why Jan
Raas chose him. Riders with such
talents are still few and far between
and Winnen also brings with him a
wealth of experience, something
that the younger team members
will benefit from in particular.
Marco van der Hulst (aged 27)
started his promising career as a
professional in 1985But his deve
lopment was hampered by the fact
that in the years that followed he
was a member of the smaller
teams. Yet he's lost none of his spe
cific qualities. Van der Hulst is
strong in the final spurt and he has
great stamina. Which was reason
enough for Jan Raas to sign him
on. This season Marco van der
Hulst will be specifically acting as
assistant to Jelle Nijdam. Van der
Hulst's job is to help manoeuvre
Nijdam into a good jump-off posi
tion for the sprints.
One of the team's strong and
silent types. That's how they des
cribe Gino van Hooydonk (Ed-
wig's older brother). Gino may not
exactly be the winning type, but
he's proved that he's just as uncom
promising as his younger brother.
Gino van Hooydonk is a hard graf
ter, a man for the heavy work,
which makes him extremely useful
for the team.
Jelle Nijdam has also shown his
mettle as a sprinter.
The real class cyclist has to be an
all-rounder. And so time-trial spe
cialist Jelle Nijdam is no mean
sprinter. This he discovered on the
penultimate day of the 1989 Tour
de France and also in the two clas
sics Paris-Brussels and Paris-
Tours. These victories in particular
have now put Nijdam amongst the
top flight of racing cyclists. There
are high hopes for Jelle Nijdam's
performance.
In his third season as a professio
nal, Frans Maassen proved that the
upward progession in his perfor
mances is by no means over. Last
year he became national champion
of Holland. His ability to take on
the crack cyclists in the classics
was demonstrated by his second
place in Milan-San Remo. Maas
sen showed his class there, which
is why the peloton kept an eagle
eye on him for the rest of the sea
son. Despite all the attention, he
still managed to win his first World
Cup Classic in August 1989: the
Wincanton Classic in the U.K.
Aged 30, Ludo de Keulenaer is
the man with routine in the Buckler
team and Jan Raas takes maximum
advantage of this professional
skill. The Belgian has been racing
for Dutch employers for years and
used to be a 'domestique' in the
same teams as Jan Raas. De Keule
naer is on the same wavelength as
Raas where tactics are concerned.
Which is why he can allocate tasks
within the peloton at those
moments when the team manager's
car is not allowed to drive along
side the leading bunch.
This Dutch national started his
professional career in Belgium as
he could not find a contract in his
home country. Veenstra's excellent
results proved that he has more
talent than many had thought.
Wiebren Veenstra has developed
into a feared sprinter, though he
has yet to reach his peak. Physi
cally he is still developing and so
further progression should be pos
sible.
Gerrit de Vries was one of the
top performers as an amateur. Last
year he changed to professional sta
tus. It was not an easy year. For
months De Vries had difficulties in
adapting. As is so often the case,
the problem was an inability to
make the body perform like the
mind wants. Professional cyclists
in fact require greater physical qua
lities than amateurs. The only cure
for this was to ride in races, and
that is what Gerrit de Vries did. In
the second half of the season his
performance had improved signifi
cantly and Jan Raas noted with
satisfaction that he had started to
make progress. "He has the poten
tial to become a very good profes
sional."
The 30-year-old Belgian Noël
Segers has been a professional
cyclist for eight years and is there
fore one of the men with the most
routine in the Buckler team. Segers
is cut out for the classic races and
he's not afraid of spearheading the
peloton in hot pursuit of a bunch of
breakaway riders. Segers mainly
feels at home on the cobbled roads
of Flanders and is regularly first
over the line.
The professional debut of the
Belgian Jan Mattheus turned out to
be a year for learning the ropes.
Mattheus had to adapt to the life of
the professional racing cyclist and,
more than anything, to the greater
physical demands made by the pro
fessional sport. Team manager Jan
Raas made sure that in his first sea
son Mattheus mainly started in the
less strenuous races. "Talent needs
to be nurtured", says Raas.
For Eric Vanderaerden the win
ning habit started from the very
first time he mounted a racing
bike. From 1977 onwards he
cycled under a Belgian licence and
since then he has achieved 343 vic
tories, of which 114 as a professio
nal. With his 21 first places he was
Belgium's most successful rider in
1989. To date Eric Vanderaerden
has won four classic races and has
finished twelve times in the first
five. During Paris-Tours last year
he was pipped at the post by his
present teammate Jelle Nijdam,
proving that he can still be a very
strong challenger. Nijdam and Van
deraerden together form a strong
duo with one aim in mind: an out
standing performance in the clas
sics.
The development of Patrick Tol
hoek revealed a sudden progres
sion in 1989 in Asturia during the
Tour of the Mine Valleys. He finis
hed sixth, did the required work
every day and proved he could do
more than other riders on the hilly
sections. Which was why Jan Raas
contracted Tolhoek. This season
the upward line in his results
should continue, especially in the
races over hilly terrain.
Toine Poels is not a cyclist
whose name hits the headlines of
the sports pages. He is a quiet per
son, but he works hard and shows
strength. Poels is chiefly a team
man. One of the hard-working
'backroom boys', he puts in 100
per cent effort for the 'protected'
riders. Jan Raas has a lot of confi
dence in the capabilities of Toine
Poels because Poels has been
riding under Raas' leadership since
his professional debut.
Gerrit Solleveld, it is claimed,
has a perfect command of almost
all of the cycling disciplines. Team
time trials, individual time trials,
riding in mass bunches, sprints;
over his past six years as a profes
sional Solleveld's splendid results
have proved he is a master in all
these areas.
OiitMi-r.
