One has just won his first rainbow jersey, the other is thirteen times world champion. But make no mistake: if Mathieu van der Poel, new road world champion, and Harrie Lavreysen share the same nationality – Dutch – only the former is a world star. As for the other? “My birthplace is perhaps the only place where people stop me in the street and recognize me”, said amused Harrie Lavreysen. And to get to Luyksgestel, you have to cross all of North Brabant (Netherlands).
Despite hovering in the sports hall of fame orange and to be among the big favorites for Olympic medals at Paris 2024, the cyclist – who won his fifth world champion title in individual speed last week in Glasgow (Scotland) – continues to go unnoticed. A track rider described by his manager Edwin de Vries as “naturally self-effacing in front of the cameras, but expansive in training”.
The first cyclist to win five world crowns in a row in individual speed, Harrie Lavreysen reigns over his sport. At 26, the Dutch sprinter confirmed during the Glasgow Super Worlds, a sort of general rehearsal bringing together all the disciplines of cycling before the Olympic Games (OG), that it would be difficult to dislodge first place at the Paris Olympics. “My Olympic title in individual sprint, in Tokyo in 2021, remains the most beautiful memory of my life, he specifies. In France, there will be all my family and my friends and it’s a track that suits me well. »
In October 2022, during the World Cycling Championships in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the velodrome where the 2024 Games will take place, Harrie Lavreysen won two individual titles, in keirin – a race where the competitors are in single file in an order determined by the toss, and dragged along in the wake of a “hare” which swerves away at the bell, leaving them to decide between themselves by sprinting on the last lap – and at speed, “a more tactical race than the keirin”.
From BMX to track cycling
Before forging one of the finest records in track cycling (five world titles in individual sprint, five in team sprint, three in keirin, to which must be added two Olympic titles in team sprint and individual sprint), Harrie Lavreysen started with BMX, “obligatory passage for any Dutchman wishing to become a cyclist”. But a victim of “double shoulder dislocation” at the age of 18, he decided to change discipline to join his “friends of the velodrome”at the national sports center in Papendal (in the east of the Netherlands), where he has been training since he was 16 years old. “The doctor had advised me to stop this sport, details Lavreysen. Compared to BMX, more legs are used on the track. Above all, the shocks are less traumatic for the upper body, which suited my shoulder weaknesses better. »
A few months later, the overpowered sprinter was Dutch team sprint champion, along with Matthijs Büchli and Jeffrey Hoogland. The latter, titled for the fourth time in the track kilometer event at the World Championships in Glasgow, symbolizes with Lavreysen this talented generation of Dutch cycling. “In the Netherlands, there is better coaching, with very good infrastructure and qualified coaches, explains Mehdi Kordi, Dutch national sprint coach. The bicycle occupies a special place, and young people are quickly detected within the training cells. Each runner pulls himself up, from the junior categories. »
In Scotland, the country of tulips ranked second best nation behind England (on track), collecting five medals, including four gold. “There is a lot of emulation within the group, rejoices Lavreysen. This bodes well for the next Olympics. » Undefeated for four years in individual sprint, the Olympic champion has no intention of resting on his laurels won on the other side of the world.
A huge favorite for his Olympic succession, Harrie Lavreysen should not, however, win the title of “cyclist of the year” in the Netherlands. “I think Matthew [van der Poel] will have it, unfortunately », says amused the one who won this honorary title in 2021, a first for a track rider since Roy Schuiten in 1974. To the grandson of Raymond Poulidor, the rainbow jersey on the road and fame. Taught him to live with modest notoriety. This does not prevent him from accumulating titles.