‘No discarded horse’
Hennie Kuiper remains a big name despite everything. The Flemish former rider Willy Teirlinck rode in the professional peloton with Kuiper for years. He knows what he has in the Dutchman. The 39-year-old cyclist brings experience and fighting spirit. He has also established himself as a mentor for young teammates in recent seasons. Kuiper fits perfectly into Teirlinck’s plan, who had started a cycling team two years earlier with sponsor Sigma. 1988 is supposed to be the breakthrough year. He presents a team with no less than three leaders: veteran Hennie Kuiper, the Dane Søren Lilholt, who was world champion on the road in the juniors in 1983, and the Belgian Etienne De Wilde, who excels well above average both on the road and on the track.
There is some criticism of signing Kuiper. Too old and no longer able to perform, they say. But Teirlinck defends his choice vigorously. ‘Most people think that the Dutchman, at 39 years old, must be a discarded horse. But based on the fitness tests carried out in Leuven, we now know that Hennie is far from worn out. Moreover, he is also an exception to the rule in terms of mental attitude. He lives and works solely for his profession, so I have no hesitation in putting him forward as team leader.’
Kuiper signs the contract that Teirlinck presents to him a bit too early. He wants certainty for the ‘88 season and the prospects are excellent. But before giving his ‘yes’ to Teirlinck, his friend José De Cauwer, sports director of the ADR team, also makes an offer. Kuiper is eager to accept it. He asks Teirlinck to cancel the contract. ‘Teirlinck didn’t want to let me go. Of course, I could have signed with De Cauwer anyway, but I didn’t. You have to take responsibility and take your signature seriously.’ Hennie mainly focuses on the team. ‘I had negotiated beforehand that I could do my own thing in three races: the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and the Amstel Gold Race.’
Sinking through the bike
In the Tour of Flanders, the 39-year-old performs unusually above expectations. He is the first to climb the Oude Kwaremont. That promises a lot for the rest of the race. Five riders reach the top with a lead: Sean Kelly, Marc Sergeant, Eddy Planckaert, Phil Anderson, and Hennie Kuiper. On the next climb, the treacherous Paterberg, a drama unfolds. Hennie hears a crack. He sinks through his bike. The frame is broken. All dreams go up in smoke. He waits for help, but it takes a whopping seven minutes before the team car can reach him. The cars were delayed by a crash involving Eric Vanderaerden. And on the narrow roads through the Flemish countryside, passing cars and riders is impossible. When Hennie finally gets his spare bike, it has a saddle that is absolutely uncomfortable. Kuiper doesn’t complain. He is in top form, so he sets off in pursuit. His deficit is now far too large, but he must and will – frustrated as he is – move up. The fiery Kuiper pushes himself. When he crosses the finish line, his seat area is raw.
Kuiper is injured. Nevertheless, he hopes to participate in Paris-Roubaix, the race in which he hopes to perform once again at the front, but the wound on his seat area is too severe to endure the jostling over the cobblestones. He also has to skip Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Amstel Gold Race. During an examination at St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg, Dr. Theo van Vroonhoven (himself an Olympic field hockey player for the Netherlands during the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Games) diagnoses him with a fistula on his backside. Surgery is necessary. It forces him into another period of about two weeks of inactivity.
In the meantime, Kuiper is honored with a Royal distinction (Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau), but he mainly looks forward to resuming competition. This happens in the Three Days of l’Oise, where he lines up at the start of the first stage with the Sigma team on May 13th. But Hennie doesn’t get far. He has to abandon the race in the first stage due to tissue inflammation in his thigh. The Dutchman is admitted to Senlis hospital. Another surgery follows. ‘The injury worsened within a few days. I couldn’t continue with it. But it wasn’t a long-term issue. Within a week, I wanted to be back on the bike.’
The end of a glorious career is there in all its facets. During the Tour of Flanders, Hennie Kuiper's frame breaks in two pieces. Standing on the side of the road, he has to wait seven minutes before he can continue his way: missed opportunities. The audience no longer has eyes for him for a moment.
Supporters
And who are the guardian angels in Senlis? The Zeelanders Tony and Marjo Obrie. They are the most dedicated supporters throughout Hennie’s long career. They make sure he lacks nothing, take care of transportation. The couple from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen met Hennie in 1978, when he was recovering from his collarbone fracture in the descent of the Granier in the Tour de France. During that recovery period, Hennie is in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen to start a race. That’s where the Zeelanders meet the Twentse Brabander for the first time. There is an immediate connection between the Obries and Kuiper.
In the fall of 1978, the Zeelanders visit Hennie and Ine in Putte. Marjo Obrie: ‘We had always been supporters of Hennie, even though we were long-distance supporters. But since the fall of 1978, we have been increasingly hanging out with him. Wherever Hennie rode: we were there.’ This presence ranges from local races to classics to stage races. Especially in the smaller races, where often no mechanics or other team staff are present, the Obries become increasingly important for Kuiper. The couple stands with spare wheels at the course and takes care of his needs. ‘They had a jug of coffee with them and sandwiches. They took the laundry home and brought it back to the next race. That was great,’ Hennie recalls.
Tony - a forklift driver by profession - skillfully drives the car through the surrounding countries to the races where their favorite rider competes. Over the years, the couple has traveled thousands of kilometers in pursuit of their idol. And they don’t stay overnight. ‘There was no money for that,’ Hennie knows. Even in the years when Hennie roams Western and Southern Europe as a team manager for Stuttgart and Motorola, the Zeeland couple continues to follow Kuiper. To this day, they stay in touch. The operation in Senlis, however modest, once again sets Kuiper back in his preparation for the Tour de France. For two consecutive years, he had to miss La Grande Boucle: in 1986, his team was not deemed worthy to start; in 1987, sports director Roger Swerts left him out of the selection.
Kuiper is determined to be at the starting line this year, now drawn in Pontchateau. It has been six years since he last played a role in the Tour. In 1982, he finished ninth, but since then, Hennie has never again emerged at the forefront of the event where he used to shine so brightly. ‘You can consider me as a team captain,’ he says on the eve of the Tour. I can help my teammates benefit from my vast experience, but I also hope to show something myself one day.’
He is not confident. His condition is not optimal after being forced to take a break twice due to those surgeries. ‘In the Tour of Asturias, it got worse every day. Fortunately, I rode fairly well in Midi Libre.’ Hennie knows better than anyone that ‘fairly well’ is not enough to even play a modest role in the Tour. As a rider, you are then doomed to hang on and that position clashes with that of a champion like Kuiper.
After Midi Libre, he headed to Font Romeu in the Pyrenees for a training camp. With his teammates Marc Mertens, Armando Ceci, Paul Haghedooren, and Adrie Kools, he pushed himself through long and grueling training rides for a week. It improves his condition somewhat, but his statement ‘I hope my condition improves a bit more in the first stages’ raises concerns. This will be his last Tour de France, he announces. But at the same time, he reveals that he wants to extend his career for one more season as a farewell tour at 40 years old without participating in the Tour. He does not yet know that this will not happen when he arrives in Normandy for his twelfth Tour de France.
On a reserve bike, Hennie Kuiper continues the battle in the Tour of Flanders of 1988. Giving up is a word he does not know. He finishes 48th.
Always up for a joke. At the farewell of active cycling in Oldenzaal, Gerrie Knetemann treats Hennie Kuiper to a family pack of Goudkuipje, one of Hennie Kuiper's nicknames in the peloton.
In Oldenzaal, the Dutch Sports Press (NSP) honors Hennie Kuiper for his sympathetic way of dealing with journalists. NSP chairman Johan Woldendorp from Trouw presents the NSP pin. In April 2000, Woldendorp suddenly passes away. In a restaurant, among his cycling colleagues. Woldendorp tragically dies on the evening before Paris-Roubaix...
‘As raw as a steak’
There is no blessing on that Tour for Hennie Kuiper. In the third stage, from Nantes to Le Mans, he is involved in a massive crash after 168 kilometers. Although he comes off better than the Swiss rider Pascal Richard, who has to be taken away with a concussion, the damage is still considerable. It looks as if an enormous rough grater has gone over the left side of his body. The skin is missing in large parts. ‘I am as raw as a steak,’ he vividly sums it up afterwards.
He finishes at the back of the peloton and then gets driven to the hospital to repair the damage. It does not help his already shaky condition. He had heard, a bit at the back of the peloton, that everyone was hitting the brakes, had also braked himself, but got hit when someone crashed into him. ‘And do you know who I got over me? Milan Jurcˇo, a rider who weighs a whopping 92 kilos. That’s why I got so injured.’ The next morning, Kuiper attracts a lot of attention at the start of the fourth stage. Four stitches in his left elbow, bandages on both knees, and his whole body covered in plasters. But Kuiper does not back down and even tries to launch an escape in the final kilometers of the stage.
In the following days, it’s a matter of gritting his teeth. He manages to hold on reasonably well until the foot of the Alps, but in the two Alpine stages, he loses almost forty minutes in total to the stage winners. It’s clear: the tank is completely empty. With the very last reserves he still has in that lean body, he heads towards the Pyrenees. The rest day that precedes it, he spends mainly in bed. It doesn’t help much. The next day, when the caravan is faced with two first-category climbs in the finale of the stage from Blagnac to Guzet-Neige, Hennie struggles from kilometer one. Even in the relatively flat lead-up, he can barely keep up with the pace. Hennie Kuiper on this day seems nothing like the driven, ambitious diesel engine that has been able to make his competitors suffer throughout his career. Every climb that still separates the riders from the first Pyrenean giants is a trial. The deadly tired Kuiper body struggles laboriously, protesting against gravity, begging for mercy as it ascends.
First dropped
The peloton starts the first real climb, the Col d’Agnes, together. As soon as the road starts to incline, there is one rider who immediately drops off: Hennie Kuiper. He reacts incredulously, bewildered.
‘I thought: what is this?’
A while later, things improve slightly. He encounters other dropped riders and reaches the finish before the time cut-off. It is a humiliating experience for Kuiper. When his wife Ine shows up at the Tour, he says: ‘I have news for you. No one knows yet, but I’m quitting.’ He ultimately finishes 95th, 1 hour 49 minutes and 37 seconds behind winner Pedro Delgado. He would have preferred a different outcome. ‘I would have liked to join a nice breakaway once. It just wasn’t meant to be.’
He ends the season by participating in the Coca-Cola Trophy in Germany, where he wins the sixth and eleventh stages: criteriums in Sindelfingen and Heilbronn. Kuiper finishes second in the overall classification, just like in 1986. A grand farewell awaits him in Oldenzaal by his cycling club OWC. More than twenty thousand people cheer enthusiastically for the hero of Twente. The book of cyclist Hennie Kuiper can now definitively close. But he will not leave the world of cycling.
The harsh realization sets in that the end of an impressive career is near. When the Tour turns onto the Col d'Agnes in 1988, Hennie Kuiper and Charly Bérard (left) are the first two to lose contact. Kuiper is dumbfounded: what is happening here? He sees the whole peloton ride away and cannot keep up with Eduardo Chozas (183) and Malcolm Elliott (104).