With an extension of his Dutch title, Tibor Del Grosso gave his successful cross winter a lot of extra color last weekend. They once again have an absolute gem on board at Alpecin-Premier Tech, although things could have turned out completely differently.
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Visma let Del Grosso slip
This is clear from the words of Gerben de Knegt, the Dutch national cyclo-cross coach. He saw early on that Del Grosso had exceptional talent, but he struggled to make that clear to the top teams.
“Anyone who saw Tibor cycling among the juniors could see that he was oozing with talent. As a junior, he already became Dutch time trial and road champion,” he tells Algemeen Dagblad. Until the Roodhooft brothers finally managed to take the plunge.
“What they do very well at Alpecin is that they offer the combination of cyclo-cross and road. That is something that many younger riders want, what they like and where they get pleasure from.”
According to De Knegt, Visma failed to bring Del Grosso on board a few years ago, with clear reasons: “At Visma they will regret not having taken Tibor at the time. They do not have the framework for cyclo-cross.”
Wild rumors?
The newspaper itself also states that Del Grosso had discussions with Visma-Lease a Bike – then still Jumbo-Visma. Although the two-time Dutch cyclo-cross champion himself doubts this: “I have quite a few stories going around about Visma and DSM. Because I have been one of the better ones in the Netherlands since I was a junior. But few stories are true,” says Del Grosso.
“I wasn’t very good as a first-year promise, and I didn’t have a great season on the road as a second-year. So I didn’t have much choice at the time. Philip and Christoph did have confidence in me. And they saw that well.”
