Episode #10

Hello, my name is Daniel Abraham Gebru, reigning Paralympic cycling champion for the Netherlands, but my roots are in Eritrea. Currently, I am mentoring young refugees in the Netherlands and trying to inspire them by showing them how sports can help them integrate in the Netherlands. In addition, I am working hard towards my goal of successfully defending my Olympic title later this year. I am happy to share my experiences, highs and lows with you on the road to Tokyo 2021!

Despite the disappointment of my result in the Tour of Flanders, I could put it into perspective afterwards and I actually got more and more confidence towards the World Cup weekend in Ostend. With a good feeling and a sophisticated preparation, I looked forward to the individual time trial on Friday. I had set myself the goal to reach the podium and I was actually confident that a win was possible. I started the race with that good feeling, but sometimes the confidence and feeling doesn't match reality. I was able to execute the tactics I had determined before the race. Against the wind, I tried to make the difference by riding at 110% and off the wind I tried to keep the speed high, without going over the limit. To beat the known competitors this also appeared to be sufficient, but a Frenchman against whom I have not ridden a TT before, threw a spanner in the works. It turned out that he had focused on an extremely high speed on the parts with wind in his favor and he gained more time on me than I gained on him on the parts with headwind. Eventually I became second behind the strong Kevin Le Cunff. His results during the elite races in France already showed that he is in good shape and I experienced that 😊. But yes, it keeps me sharp and I know who to beat next time.

During the road race I was of course focused on the strong Frenchman who won the time trial. Besides him, there were some strong competitors, but he was still the guy to keep an eye on. Just like during the Tour of Flanders, Martin van de Pol rode away fairly early in the race and he got the winner of the Ronde in his wheel. I didn't want to make the same tactical mistake I did at the Ronde again, so I jumped on the attack. Because Kevin Le Cunff, the Frenchman who beat me in the time trial, wasn't there, I saw my chance and I pushed the speed of the breakaway group further up to make the lead as big as possible. The cooperation in the group, which also included an Italian and a Ukrainian rider, was good and I saw my chances of winning getting bigger and bigger.

Until I heard that Kevin Le Cunff and the reigning world champion had broken away from the peloton and were closing in fast. From that moment I made the decision to make the race even harder by riding full speed. Two laps before the end, the Frenchman in the leading group went very hard and got a gap of 50 meters. When we caught up and the gap dropped, I went full speed and crossed the finish line solo with a 40sec lead! YESS! In the end, Kevin Le Cunff still caught up with the leading group and finished second. The winner of the Ronde completed the podium. It looks like the biggest competition at the Olympics will come from France! Now first the focus on the world championships in Portugal from 9 tm 13 June. After the races I was quite tired so I took it a little easier the last 2 weeks, paying a lot of attention to optimizing the time trial equipment.
After all rain we've had here in the Netherlands, I now see, as I write this, that the sun is breaking through the clouds. Finally! The weather forecast is also super, so enjoy it all!

Cheers, Daniel

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