On Juli 28 the 44th round of the criterium of Surhuisterveen was held. After the Tour de France these races are held in Belgium and in The Netherlands. Te most famous one is ‘Daags na de Tour’ in Boxmeer held immediately the Monday after the Tour de France has ended on Sunday. Criteriums are also known as crit-racing or all ‘ Rounds around the Church’. as the cares are held in a small 2-to-3 kilometer round around the town’s centre.
Nowadays the professional cyclists have a really well salary, but in the old days the criteriums after the Tour were where the money was at. Especially if you were a well know cyclist with a bit of bad luck int he Tour. The criteriums will pay start money and there are sprints to be won during the race and of course the overall price for winning the overall criterium. The races build up slowly to end in a very high speed finale. This year was no different in that I saw the riders smile a lot during the rounds, so they weren’t going all out yet.
I arrived in Surhuisterveen (in Friesland, the north of The Netherlands) just before the main race started. Before that there have already been races for the very young and the more serious youth in the afternoon. At 19:00 the riders for the professional ride are introduced. Tour de France winners of the polka-dot jersey Richard Carapaz and sprinters Green-jersey Mads Petersen get the main introduction together with Dutch cyclist Bauke Mollema, not present in the Tour de France this year, but he will retire after this year and has a long standing career as a cyclist and Pascal Eenkhoorn of Soudal-QuickStep.
It’s also great to see up and coming Dutch cyclists such as Huub Artz from Lotto-Intermarché and Gijs Schoonvelde of Red Bull Hans Bora or Daan Eijkman of UAE Team Emirates
It’s also Bauke who will give this criterium a lot of colour this evening as he’s in the break-away trying to score the mid race sprint bonus, however as he’s in a group of four riders, it’s not easy and he ultimately failed in the attempt. After more or less 60 rounds and 80km of racing the race came to an end with Richard Carapaz as winner, Mads Pedersen second and Bauke Mollema as third.
It’s been years since I watched a criterium. The ones of Surhuisterveen were the Profronde of 2016 with Chris Froome, Bauke Mollema and Dylan Groenewegen and the Profronde of 2018 where that years Yellow jersey winner Geraint Thomas was and also with Tom Dumoulin and Laurens ten Dam. I’ve also visited the Golden Pijl in Emmen for a few years, but really the last few years I missed them and coming back this year I did realise I missed it. But mostly looking back over all the years I noticed how long Bauke Mollema has been a part of this sport (in 2015, my first visit to the Gouden Pijl crib race Bauke was there as well) and also how much the bicycles have changed during the years.
So in conclusion: lots and lots of fun even though of course the results are more or less pre-dermined. It’s ‘Panem et Circenses’ of bread and circuses.
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