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Exactly a year ago, Mathieu van der Poel wrote the history of cycling by winning the Amstel Gold Race inimitable as a rookie. A look back on an unforgettable day in Limburg with the help of Marcel van Hoorn, who won the sports photo of the year with a photo of an emotional Van der Poel shortly after the end.
The beginning
Can a two-time cyclocross world champion and recognized winner earn his breakthrough? Maybe not, but 2019 is the year that Mathieu van der Poel also takes road cycling to his liking.
In the run-up to the Amstel Gold Race, the last race of his first classic spring, the multi-talent will only have up to a fifteen-day race, but will record five wins. And the way it impresses even more. Attacks more than 60 kilometers from the end on the road to victory at Dwars Vlaanderen’s gate, out of a defeated position, still fourth in the Tour of Flanders, an unprecedented show of power at Brabantse Pijl; It is not hyperbole to say that Van der Poel changes cycling in just two months.
Therefore, all eyes on April 21, 2019 are focused on the man in the national champion’s shirt, who must become the first Dutch winner of the Amstel Gold Race since Erik Dekker in 2001.
Marcel van Hoorn has a single thought early on a sunny Sunday morning when he walks away from his home in Heerlen: The Van der Poel couple wins, suppose they do what all Dutch sports enthusiasts expect, how do I want to visualize that?
“I already had the moment in mind,” says the photographer, who reports on behalf of the ANP news agency the only classic of Dutch cycling. “My colleague would be at the end and I would be 100 meters away. The joy after the line, the fuss around him; that’s the image. But then everything has to fit.”
Mathieu van der Poel on the starting podium of the Amstel Gold Race. (Photo: Pro Photos)
The course
The Amstel Gold Race means 257 kilometers and almost seven hours of running and turning over the narrow roads in the mountainous landscape of southern Limburg. And it also traditionally means a leading group that gets a huge advantage in the early hours of the race. This time there are eleven escapees and they pack for up to eight minutes. Despite his tricolor and white shorts, Van der Poel is not yet noticeable in that large group.
As always, Van Hoorn has determined a route along all the photogenic points of the Amstel Gold Race course. He rides his motorcycle to the famous Sint Hubertusmolen near the Adsteeg, the Eyserbosweg, the Gulperberg.
The flower blooms beautifully on the second warmest Easter Monday since measurements began in the Netherlands, but Van Hoorn really knows he’s busy for free: “Van der Poel is the only thing today, whether you win or lose. All those humorous photos are fine, but they will go straight to the trash. “
The platoon passes through the Sint Hubertusmolen. (Photo: Pro Photos)
The end
Van der Poel’s inevitable attack this time reaches 45 kilometers from the goal. The top favorite accelerates at the Gulperberg, but they get it back pretty quickly. Subsequently, the leader of Corendon-Circus cannot join as Julian Alaphilippe and Jakob Fuglsang. The French and Danish take almost a minute in the group with Van der Poel and Dekker seems to run out of a successor for another year.
More than an hour before the scheduled end time, Van Hoorn takes his place, 100 meters after the end at Berg en Terblijt. To his right is packed with people for all television crews and behind him are hordes of fans behind a fence.
“Next to me, a colleague is pricking my head, but I don’t think so right now,” says Van Hoorn. “At that time I completely shut down and I only worry about what might happen, otherwise I can’t work.”
To his left, Van Hoorn sees a side street, a possible place where he can avoid the crowd immediately after the end. But first he looks in front of a big screen, in which a group led by Van der Poel finds the connection with Alaphilippe and Fuglsang out of nowhere. Wow, what’s going to happen here? Van Hoorn thinks, putting goosebumps on his arms and feeling a rush of adrenaline. This is what you have been waiting for eight hours.
Mathieu van der Poel can’t believe he won either. (Photo: Pro Photos)
The end
“No, this is not true, is it?” Shouts NOS commentator Herbert Dijkstra. “It’s true! Van der Poel wins!”
In a rarely seen last kilometer, Van der Poel himself closes the gap with the front runners, begins the sprint and shakes his head, shaking the winner. After a pat on the back of number two, Simon Clarke sends ‘MVDP’ to the right, squeezes the brakes, puts his bike on the ground, and lies down next to him..
In the helicopter footage from just after the end, you see a man with a red vest around his shoulders and a camera in his hand standing first next to the liar Van der Poel. “It’s like in a casino, you take risks,” says Van Hoorn. “At the last minute I run to the other side, towards the side street. If Van der Poel falls 10 meters earlier on the ground, I leave and I don’t have a photo. But it is a kind of instinct to know where to stop when I photograph.
In five seconds, a scrum arises around the winner. Security guards, caretakers and journalists circle around Van der Poel. “I am entangled in the cables of NOS reporter Han Kok, but that doesn’t matter,” says Van Hoorn. “Van der Poel is right in front of me and at that moment I know that I am in something very special. Van der Poel laughs, shouts, sighs, cries; all emotions arise one after another. Emotion of an athlete.”
As Van der Poel slowly gets up and is taken to the stage, Van Hoorn already knows that he has taken a special photo: Van der Poel from head to toe, lying down, with his mouth open and the bicycle next to him. Perfectly happy
The sports photo of the year 2019. (Photo: ANP / Marcel van Hoorn)
