What happened, what happened?! Maike van der Duin and Lisa van Belle let their bikes go wild in disbelief after the finish of the Olympic madison. Did they really win bronze? They look at each other, they look around. The stadium cheers, for the winners, but all the Orange audience cheers mainly for them.
They decided to fly in, to race boldly. As a very young, new couple, they had nothing to lose. And look at them now. They laugh, they cheer themselves, they hug with family at the edge of the track. 22-year-old Maike van der Duin from Assen and 20-year-old Lisa van Belle from Zoetermeer are the stunt on the cycling track.
“We’ve done a lap, we’ve sprinted, we’ve scored points. We’ve suffered, but we’ve also had fun,” the duo jubilantly summarizes the race. What follows is an eloquent report for the group of journalists, in which they take the baton from each other as they take turns on the track.
Maike: “Our plan was to keep it easy in the beginning. We believed in getting a lap. I felt really good the last few days, I also said to Lisa: I haven’t felt this good this year. We said to each other: when the moment is there, feel it, and take it.”
Lisa: “Maike executed that perfectly. She saw the moment, she went for it. And with that we opened the race beautifully. I think the other countries didn’t expect that from us. We were the underdogs.”
Maike: “Yes, we are 20 and 22 years old! Hahaha!”
Lisa: “We’ve only done two races together. And we’ve only been preparing for this race since March.”
Maike: “We have so much fun together, around the training. We have been on altitude training together. If Lisa has a bad day, I am there. And if I have a bad day, Lisa is there. We have pulled each other to a higher level. We had a lot of confidence in this competition, but we also went into it very openly. Yesterday I said: Lies, no matter whatif we just show today who Lisa and Maike are. That they might think: well, for the 2028 Games this could be something really nice.”
Lisa: “After that lap we had to recover of course. We mainly thought about being in the right wheels. Saving our legs. I think we did that well. Taking it a bit easier. We knew that a lot could still happen.”
Harry Lavreysen, who less than five minutes ago became Olympic sprint champion, cycles up with his suit unzipped and falls into Maike’s arms. They hug for a long time.
Lisa: “Sorry, I’m a bit lost.”
Then she gets a big hug from Harry. All the journalists then crowd around Lavreysen. Only one remains to finish the conversation with Maike and Lisa.
Maike: “I had a serious injury last winter, which kept me out for a long time. I had broken my fibula and tibia, and my ankle was also not right. I was busy with that all winter, with rehabilitation. And when that started to go a bit better, then I lost my father. That is the worst thing that ever happened to me. And yes, everything was against me. But I just knew: he has to help me sometime this year. I felt that these days, that he was helping me.”
Lisa puts an arm around her: “Maike has pulled herself together really well today. And she has simply shown that she can do this.”
Maike: “I’m speechless right now.”
She steps aside, her face in her hands. Lisa finishes the conversation alone: ”We’re really dragging each other through this. In the short time that we’ve known each other, we’ve grown very close. We have a lot of contact. We know each other very well by now. That has helped us so much with this, to trust each other and go for it. I’m so incredibly proud of her for putting this here. Everything that has happened has brought us very close together.”
