Without any nonsense, four former winners will appear at the start of the Daikin NK Marathon on Thursday. The person who cannot be included in that list is Harm Visser. The 25-year-old rider was already close in 2024, in a season when almost everything fell into place for the sprinter. Only in the battle for the red-white-blue did he miss out and crashed in the final round together with Gary Hekman, among others. “I actually should have won that National Championship,” Visser still thinks.
Since then, Visser has been looking for revenge in what is one of the most important matches of the season for him, even though he is no longer the frequent winner he was then. Other teams have strengthened and a formidable competitor has emerged in De Haan Westerhoff. After a victory in Utrecht at the start of the season, a bad four-day event followed at the end of November. His podium finish in Deventer, on the other hand, did him a lot of good. The upward trend is back.
“It will be a difficult story, but we will go for it again and see what happens,” he looks ahead. “It will be a great race, I’m sure. We have a slightly larger peloton than normal, with some B riders included. It will be a tough race anyway and there is a good chance that few men will finish. After Jorrit Bergsma’s second attack, there will be little left.”
