Le Col-Wahoo rider at the Tour just three months into pro cycling career
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The whole peloton is experiencing something new at the Tour de France Femmes but perhaps none more so than Le Col-Wahoo’s Eva van Agt, who is racing at one of the biggest races of the season less than three months after signing her first UCI contract.
25-year-old Van Agt joined Le Col-Wahoo in May as a mid-season signing from a Dutch club team. She is not only new to cycling but also made the move from a totally different sport. She spent four years playing collegiate field hockey on a scholarship at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she also studied a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Economics.
“It was very professional,” Van Agt told Cyclingnews. “I was pretty much a full time athlete, so that’s actually not too different [to now].”
Going to the United States to study and play is not an uncommon path for Dutch hockey players - whose women’s national team is ranked number one in the world - due to the lack of sports scholarships in the Netherlands.
After finishing her studies, Van Agt returned to the Netherlands in 2019 with the intention of continuing to play hockey. But when the pandemic hit in early 2020, an old hobby on two wheels became her new competitive outlet.
“I always had a bike, but I just used it for training. I think I rode per year what I ride in a week now, so not too much,” she said of her journey into cycling.
“And then in the US I did some cool trips, backpacking with the bike and it really caught my interest. I also did a three month trip, I bought a van and slept in that for three months, doing bike trips from there.
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“Then I came back to the Netherlands to play field hockey again, but it was Covid season again so then I started cycling even more. I joined a student club in the city where I live now, Maastricht, and it was such a great community and I really wanted to have the lifestyle of a cyclist.
“Then I thought ‘okay, maybe I can try to become pro’ and have this lifestyle, that would be awesome.”
A steep learning curve
Realising this was what she wanted to do, Van Agt took up racing in local events in the Netherlands, racing most recently for club team Restore Cycling, before catching the attention of Le Col-Wahoo at the Volta Limburg earlier this year.
Though Van Agt has experience of being a competitive athlete and the pressures that come with that, she has been thrown in the deep end since signing for Le Col-Wahoo.
She had only raced one UCI race - the Drentse Acht van Westerveld in March - before signing, and when she was selected for the Tour de France Femmes, she had yet to ride a WorldTour event.
“I did Thuringen in May and that was my first stage race,” she said. “But this is my second stage race, first WorldTour race.”
As first WorldTour races go, the opening days of the inaugural Tour de France Femmes are quite the way to start.
“It’s overwhelming so far,” Van Agt said. “Really cool, a cool experience. A bit hectic but I’m looking forward to the hills.”
Despite the chaos of the Tour, Van Agt has a good team around her supporting her on her way into cycling. Though a small team, Le Col-Wahoo are an established and experienced outfit in the peloton, and a good place for a young rider to learn her craft.
“The team is awesome, they’re helping me a lot,” she said. “I’ve mainly raced with Nico [Marche, team DS] and Julia [Soek] is also amazing, but Nico is so knowledgeable and he teaches me so much. The girls in the team are also awesome, they’re really encouraging me and allowing me to make mistakes and stuff so it’s cool.”
(Image credit: LE COL WAHOO)
In the family
As well as her background in hockey, Van Agt’s story has another interesting facet, which has certainly piqued the interest of the Dutch press. Her grandfather, Dries van Agt, is a former prime minister of the Netherlands, and a big cycling fan.
“When he was the prime minister he went to the Tour I think every year as a holiday,” Van Agt said of her grandfather. “He was in the neutral cars and stuff and with some teams.
“He really followed cycling and I think he also brought it to the public of the Netherlands. A lot more people started cycling because he encouraged people to.”
Van Agt may not have originally followed her grandfather’s cycling passion, but now she is.
Looking to the future
Only four months into her career, Van Agt still has a lot to learn not just about cycling, but about herself as a cyclist.
Her stand-out result this season came on a rolling day at the Lotto Thüringen Tour, which earnt her fifth in the mountains classification of that race.
“I don’t know yet exactly [what type of rider I am],” she said. “Definitely not a sprinter, but more other types. I think more climber, long climbs, but I still need to figure that out. My goals for now are just learning, having fun and we’ll see.”
And whether any hockey might fit into that future? Probably not, she says.
“I kind of wish I did [still play],” she said. “But if I took up a stick now, then I think I’d be sore for two weeks, so I’m not doing that.”
Matilda Price is a freelance cycling journalist and digital producer based in the UK. She is a graduate of modern languages, and recently completed an MA in sports journalism, during which she wrote her dissertation on the lives of young cyclists. Matilda began covering cycling in 2016 whilst still at university, working mainly in the British domestic scene at first. Since then, she has covered everything from the Tour Series to the Tour de France. These days, Matilda focuses most of her attention on the women’s sport, writing for Cyclingnews and working on women’s cycling show The Bunnyhop. As well as the Women’s WorldTour, Matilda loves following cyclo-cross and is a recent convert to downhill mountain biking.
