The battlefield of Huy: Van Dijke "could hardly talk anymore" and Mollema sees "less than fifty riders finished"

The battlefield of Huy: Van Dijke “could hardly talk anymore” and Mollema sees “less than fifty riders finished”

The Flèche Wallonne turned into a battlefield. Big names had to drop back massively in the tough middle of the race when snow and cold tormented the event. Two Dutchmen who still experienced the race relatively from the front were Tim van Dijke and Bauke Mollema. The youngster and the veteran gave a vivid impression of the brutally tough race in the NOS post-race flash interview.

“My face is completely stiff, so I can hardly talk,” begins the young rider. “I saw the sky turning black, then I thought: I’ll grab a jacket. Also, for a long time I thought I had bad legs. Then came snow, hail, thunder, you name it. I kept getting better. At the end, I was working for Tiesj (Benoot, ed.) and dropped him off.”

“The cold is really not nice, and the hail, it’s like they’re shooting stones at you,” continues the classics specialist from Visma | Lease a Bike jokingly. “I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, everything hurts. It was like that for everyone, it really hit hard. I was there for Tiesj, I’m not going to let him down! Now I’m going to prepare for the Tour of Romandie and then I hope to get some rest.”

Mollema could no longer feel his hands

Bauke Mollema, may have been around a lot longer, but he too had rarely experienced anything like this. The climber from Lidl-Trek was dropped in the finale and finished a few minutes after Van Dijke. “Wet snow, it was cold all day. Everything was soaking wet. You never get warm again. The first time on the Mur de Huy I thought: I can go a long way!” That proved deceptive, as Mollema had to drop back shortly after.

“Eventually, it quickly became so tough. I had to get new gloves. I had no power left and couldn’t feel my hands anymore. You can’t push deep anymore. Will fifty people finish? Everyone must have been surprised that it suddenly got so cold. I saw it coming somewhere. Leg warmers and overshoes on. Many riders were really taken by surprise. You want to keep going, even though there was little left in it. Skjelmose had to drop out. I wanted to finish as high as possible, but there was nothing left in it.”