Tom Dumoulin: The accidental bike rider who keeps getting better

Team Sunweb had a decent outing in the recently-concluded Abu Dhabi Tour with Wilco Kilderman finishing runner-up to winner Alejandro Valverde (Team Movistar) and their young rider Phil Bauhaus claiming a sensational victory on the last sprint event of the tour (Stage 3).
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about their main general classification (GC) contender and somewhat of a superstar in cycling - Tom Dumoulin, who had to endure two back-to-back days of mechanical failures that pushed him out of contention. However, for a level-headed Dumoulin, this should merely be a blip as he will be preparing himself for the Grand Tours later in the year.
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TOI Sports caught with the Dutch star after stage three to talk about his interest in cycling, how he started with the sport and how he feels about the accolades he has earned in a rather short while.
Bauhaus, Dumoulin’s teammate took up cycling at the age of eight and always knew that he will get into professional cycling - similar to most of the pro-cyclists. With a very ultra-competitive environment, like any other top-level sport in the world, you need to be focussed, you need to be ready and you need to start early. So you may think, right?
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But for Dumoulin, the 2017 Giro d'Italia winner - the first ever Dutch rider to conquer the one of cycling's Grand Tour races, the reigning world individual men's time trial champion and the man touted to be the next big thing in the sport of men’s cycling, was not really planning to be a professional rider.
Born in Maastricht in the southeast of the Netherlands, Dumoulin’s interest in cycling came about watching the Amstel Gold Race, the one-day race held in April. Of course, being in a country where the number of cycles outnumber the actual population will eventually will lead you to take up the sport, but for Dumoulin, that also came about too late.
“I grew up with cycling, it was there that one of the classics take place, The Amstel Gold, and I watched it couple of times next to the road,” says the 27-year-old.
And the reason he took up cycling was the fact that he enjoyed the Amstel Gold Race as a spectator, yet it wasn’t to the extent of leaving his primary goal of being a doctor. “I started cycling when I was 15, little bit by accident and also I watched the race and it looked really cool,” remembers Dumoulin.
With the ambition of becoming a doctor fading away, Dumoulin got into Health Sciences, which clearly he did not enjoy and dropped out a year later. All this while, the cycling enthusiast was making heads turn with his cycling skills.
Sample this: In the UCI Under-23 Nations' Cup, the Dutch rider rode the time trail for the first time in his life and walked away the winner and also claimed the overall title. And he got better and better.
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“I was not really planning on becoming a rider. It was sport I liked and I started doing better and better and one day someone decided to hand me a contract,” adds Dumoulin, in a very casual manner.
Ask about any role models or early influences in his career, Dumoulin says: ”No one. I went for it, for the love of it and now am living this crazy life”.
After riding for amateur teams for couple of years, the ‘The Butterfly of Maastricht’, as he is known, Dumoulin turned professional by gaining a contract from Project 1t4i team (now Team Sunweb) in 2012. After two years of playing second fiddle to his teammates, Dumoulin came in to his own taking the 2014 Dutch National Time Trial Championship and followed it with a bronze in the UCI World Time Trial Championships.
The following year, he claimed two stages in Vuelta a España and in 2016 extended his success with individual stage wins at Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and retained his National Time Trial Championship. 2017 saw him take the famed Maglia Rosa - the GC leader’s jersey at the Giro. He added another feather in his cap with the World Time Trial Championship victory.
So for someone who started out cycling as a hobby, this kind of success is unprecedented, and Dumoulin is quite humble with what he has achieved.
“No, I didn’t make a plan of achieving all this. It just happened and I am just very happy with where I am right now,” he says.
However, be it hobby or passion, being a professional rider isn’t easy. The races are gruelling, the stages stiff, and with the level of competition around, there aren't many sports in the world that is as tough as cycling. Physically, you are your own competition before evening thinking about the physical conditioning of your competitor. Also, your mental makeup, as Dumoulin explains, eventually makes the difference - be it cycling or any other sport.
“You know it is quite a physical sport,” Dumoulin says. “Like any other sports, the further you get to the top, it is more mentally demanding, and like riders, the sportsmen who can deal with the mental issues that comes their you way and overcome it, they succeeds. What makes cycling different or more demanding is that it is physically very hard on the riders. You need to train a lot and put in a lot of efforts”.