As Pieterse joins, Vos bids farewell to Gunnewijk after 8 years: "Being the Dutch national coach is no easy task"

Looking at the Dutch squad for the World Championships in Switzerland, it’s hard to miss the overwhelming talent. Demi Vollering may be the leading lady, but with riders like Puck Pieterse and Marianne Vos in the mix, the team is stacked with talent supporting the SD Worx star. IDLProCycling.com caught up with Pieterse and Vos ahead of the race during the Dutch team’s press event.

The Swiss Star Hotel in Wetzikon is hosting a lot of cycling power this week, with both the Dutch and Belgian teams staying there ahead of the World Championships in Zurich. Defending champion Lotte Kopecky spoke to the media early Friday morning, making an interesting point about the Dutch team. "Looking at their squad, you can see they have one clear leader on paper, but there are other riders with their eyes on the world title. That’s something we, and other teams, can take advantage of."

Later, Vollering took the stage and, as team leader, agreed that it wouldn’t all be about her. "I may be the leader, but we also have riders like Puck and Marianne, and we can definitely play those cards. We need to be bold enough to do that because a lot of eyes will be on me," said Vollering, fully aware of her status as the top climber in the peloton. This means there are opportunities for veteran Vos, who will be racing her 17th World Championships, and Pieterse, who is making her debut at the road World Championships across all categories.

Pieterse’s season just keeps getting better

Pieterse recently went to altitude training with her boyfriend, Darren van Bekkum—who is racing in the U23 World Championships on Friday—and on the way back, she stopped in Zurich to check out the course. "That’s when the excitement really kicked in. It’s such an awesome course. On paper, it should suit me perfectly—it’s never flat. The race is going to completely blow apart," she said with a big smile and a twinkle in her eye.

The remaining question: will it be about controlling the race or creating chaos? "It’s definitely going to be chaos. Normally, when you ride with your WorldTour team, there’s mutual respect, but here it’s more of a ‘eat or be eaten’ situation," she adds with a fitting comparison. "A race like this is hard to control, so I have an idea of how it’s going to go. Demi is our leader. On paper, but likely also in practice. She has the strength and experience to finish it off. But first, we have to get to that point."

According to Pieterse, the vibe within the team is good. "The atmosphere is relaxed, and I think everyone gets along well. Before the race, as long as everyone knows their role and executes it, we should get a good result. But in a World Championship, everything also has to come together," says Pieterse, who recently became a mountain bike world champion.

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Pieterse’s title—and her success across multiple disciplines—has given her a certain kind of peace of mind. "This season has already been so good; I don’t feel like I need to salvage my season here or prove that I can race on the road. I can just do my thing," she says after a busy summer. "It’s been a long peak for me. The Tour took more out of me than I’d hoped in terms of recovery, but I hope I can keep this peak going just a little longer, then rest after the gravel World Championships. I even had to decide whether to ride this road World Championship, as my competitors are racing mountain bikes in America."

"I enjoy everything, and maybe that’s a bit of my problem," she says with a big smile. For now, she’s continuing to compete on the road, in cyclocross, on gravel, and on her mountain bike. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who also comes from mountain biking, might be the wildcard for the World Championships in Zurich. "I know how well she peaks, and I saw her at the mountain bike World Championships, where she was already preparing for this race. She’s definitely going to be strong."

Vos could go for the title again, 18 (!) years after her first World Championship victory in Salzburg

While Pieterse is making her debut, Vos is competing in her 17th World Championship. "I see some of myself in her: the love of the game, the race, no matter the discipline. Although I should mention that my mountain biking skills aren’t even close to hers. But the same passion and joy make it hard to choose sometimes. Sometimes it’s okay to do things just because they’re fun."

This will be Vos’s 17th World Championship, with Innsbruck 2018 being the only one she missed. Fittingly, it was in Austria where she won her first World Championship title in Salzburg in 2006. "I still remember the finish, but also Chantal Beltman telling me that I could win. She made me realize it was possible, and as I approached the finish, I understood that I was actually going to win. As a first-year pro, it was surreal."

Now, in 2024, things are different, but also the same. "We have a strong team here, with Demi as our leader. She’s in great shape, so we’ll do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position to go for the title," says Vos. "I feel relaxed again, but the tension before a World Championship is always there."

The Dutch rider is going full steam ahead. "I specifically planned a high-altitude training camp in Andorra after the Olympics and the Tour because I wanted to do everything I could to be as fit and fresh as possible at the start." Vos also arrived early in Switzerland. "Wednesday morning was one of the two chances to scout the course, and I thought it would be a good idea to do an intensive training session on the route. It worked out, so that was beneficial."

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"It's a course that’s hard to assess through tools like VeloViewer," says Vos. "Only when you're actually riding it do you realize how it really is. On paper, the climbs don’t seem like much, but on the bike, they’re all-out efforts. The best riders will be at the front here. Kopecky is the favorite after last year and with her abilities, but we need to use the strength of our Dutch team’s depth."

"We have one goal, and we're all working towards it—you can really feel that within the team," she says. "And I have to say that Loes Gunnewijk has played a key role in that. Over the past few years, she’s invested a lot in helping us get to know each other better and understanding how we can rely on one another. Of course, we’ve also learned from things that went wrong," referring to events like the Olympics and the 2021 World Championships.

The fact that this will be Gunnewijk's last time with the team doesn’t stir any particular emotions in Vos just yet. "We’re going to do everything we can to make Loes's last World Championships a success, but we’re mostly focused on the race itself. Not so much with Loes in the back of our minds, but she’s done a great job over the last eight years. It's not easy being the national coach of the Dutch women’s team," Vos concludes with a smile.