After half a year off, Tom Dumoulin will continue road racing
After half a year off, Tom Dumoulin will continue road racing
After winning the silver medal at the Olympic time trial on Wednesday, Tom Dumoulin announced he will continue his cycling career this season.
“I will continue cycling. It’s something I decided in the past weeks,” he told Dutch broadcaster NOS. “This way it’s really fun. I chose my own path with the team. I like the way I am doing it now. Cycling is still a great sport,” he added with a smile.
Dumoulin announced last January he would quit cycling due to mental and physical fatigue. He simply lost the joy of training and racing. “I am getting of this train now. I don’t know if I will catch the next one or not,” he said in a video released by his team Jumbo-Visma.
Based on previous results, Dumoulin already had a ticket for Tokyo and when he appeared on the Dutch team’s vaccination list in April, it became clear he would return with the Olympic time trial as ultimate goal. It was unclear what would come after, as he stated he would decide what to do after that time trial.
“I am proud and happy,” he said after the time trial. “What this means? This was my goal, getting a medal today. In the previous months I didn’t know if this was possible and I tried to wonder as little as I could. I wanted to enjoy the process and that worked well. I had a few great months of preparation and to finish it off like this is great.”
The 2017 Giro d’Italia winner will ride a full race program this autumn including the world championships in Belgium at the end of September. The program is yet to be determined but he has already stated it won’t include the Vuelta. “How we are going to do this in the coming months and years is yet to be decided but I like the game of playing a cyclist again. The world championships are a goal although it’s not my course but first I will enjoy this moment,” he told AD Sportwereld.
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