Tom Dumoulin critical of 'data-driven' teams, calls for balance between science and 'human coaching'

At 31, Tom Dumoulin was still in his prime years as a professional cyclist when he retired in 2022 while riding for Jumbo-Visma. Instead of signing a new contract to continue his career, Dumoulin laid it all down. 

In an interview with Nieuwsblad.be, he has said that the data-driven, prescriptive approach that the sport has taken in recent seasons pushed him out of love with cycling. 

The Dutchman thinks that the science-focussed methods to coaching and nutrition finds success with certain riders, but fails to get the best out of many in the peloton today. 

Specifically asked about his former team, now Visma-Lease a Bike, Dumoulin commented that riders such as Fem van Empel and Cian Uijtdebroeks may be struggling due to the team’s ways of doing things.

"With their data-driven way of working, they have achieved mega success for a number of years. That approach certainly works for a number of riders," he said. 

"Fem van Empel, Cian Uijtdebroeks, Christophe Laporte - they have lost for a while now. There are also some who are performing less well. In general, they are doing less than in previous years,"

The team recently announced that multi-discipline star Fem Van Empel is taking a break from the racing. 

"For all teams, but also for Visma, it will be a challenge to find the balance between data, science, but also human coaching," Dumoulin said.

The 2017 Giro d’Italia winner compared the science-first methodology with the more flexible setup that Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar appear to enjoy at Alpecin-Deceuninck and UAE Team Emirates-XRG respectively. 

Their success over the past few seasons, Dumoulin says, is down to the riders being given more sway over their racing and training programmes.

"The best riders at the moment are the ones who find the balance best. Pogačar and Van der Poel both ended up in a team at a young age where they were encouraged to listen to their own feelings.

"Mathieu still has an enormous amount of autonomy. He eats healthily, he uses all the science, but he decides for himself which races he does and doesn't ride, where he wants to be good and when he goes golfing for a week.

"If you have the feeling that you are the boss of your own career, you can go through walls. The teams and riders who go overboard in science and marginal gains are often the ones who just don't have it."

‘A piece in someone else’s puzzle’

It’s this lack of autonomy which ultimately led to Dumoulin’s retirement in 2022. 

The interviewer for Nieuwsblad.be, José de Cauwer, proposed to Dumoulin that by retiring at 31, he had missed out on three good years of his career and roughly five million euros in his pay packet.  “I'm finding that out now, yes,” Dumoulin responded. “I just couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't getting anything out of it for myself anymore.”

“At the end I had become a piece in someone else's puzzle. The dietician told me: you are going to eat like this and like that. The trainer said: you are going to train like this and like that and you are going to race like this and like that. Without really asking: what is your position on that or how do you feel about it? That's where I got stuck.”

Dumoulin has kept himself largely at arms-length from the sport since his retirement, occasionally offering comment at the Tour de France but never really considering a return to more official involvement.

When asked if he might now consider a comeback in a managerial role, Dumoulin appeared to have warmed to the idea.

“I would find it a shame not to pass on my experience. I am not going to become a team leader right away, that is not my place, but maybe I can do something in the mental guidance of riders.”