Retired sports icons Wüst, Dumoulin and ‘Kromo’ enjoy their freedom

One had announced it well in advance, the other two suddenly came with their goodbyes. Sports year 2022 marks – among other things – the end of the impressive careers of skater Ireen Wüst, swimmer Ranomi Kromowidjojo and cyclist Tom Dumoulin.

Each and every one of them genuine icons from Dutch sports history. After all, there is a Ranomi Plantsoen in Sauwerd, Ireen Wüst Ice Rink in Tilburg and Tom Dumoulin Bike Park in Sittard-Geleen for a reason. It is therefore more than logical that the trio will be put in the spotlight again tonight at the Sportgala in Amsterdam. An end-of-year party where all three of them have already collected a Jaap Eden (the prize for athlete of the year). Of course.

In the run-up to the Sports Gala, NOS spoke with the trio.

Kromowidjojo, good for two prestigious Olympic titles in 2012, and Wüst, present at five Winter Games and always coming home with individual gold, even have two. Dumoulin, who proudly reveals that his own adorns the living room, owes the statue to his overall victory in the Giro d’Italia in 2017, the year in which he also became world time trial champion.

Where both women ended their careers with a firm exclamation mark – ‘Kromo’ at the end of 2021 with a world title in the short course 50-meter butterfly, while Wüst raced to Olympic gold in the 1,500 meters in Beijing at the beginning of this year – Dumoulin’s went out like a night candle. Got off in Clásica San Sebastián. The hoped-for ‘bang’ at the World Championships time trial never came.

“It turned out the way it turned out,” he looks back without remorse. “Of course I wanted to end it grandiosely. That’s the dream image. But it turned out differently and I don’t regret it. I was at the World Cup in Australia, but it didn’t tickle at all. I just couldn’t anymore. I made myself unhappy about it.”

Watch a report with Tom Dumoulin at the World Cycling Championships below.

Kromowidjojo did say goodbye with a resounding result, although it only became clear a month later that it was a final agreement. “Stopping was quite a process and I’m glad it was my own choice. The fact that I won a world title at my last tournament naturally makes me happy, but that was never my motivation. People said: why do you suddenly stop now, you’re in shape? But I’m just happy with it. I closed it nicely like this.”

Wüst also managed to flame again in her – announced – last season. “I enjoyed that last year very much. Even in the summer. It was not a farewell tour, but I was very aware that everything was the last time.”

After the very handsome Olympic gold in February, a final 1,500 meters followed a month later at the World Cup final in Heerenveen. “Everyone was cheering so loudly,” she vividly recalls. “I almost cried before I started. I thought: I’ll sit on the bench again, I can’t do it like that.”

Watch the farewell of Ireen Wüst and Sven Kramer in Thialf below.

The thoughts also go to how it once started. “I remember my first Olympic gold in 2008 very well,” Kromowidjojo recalls the relay success in Beijing, ten days before her 18th birthday. “I was amazed, but I was also very driven and very mature for my age. I knew what I had to do for it. It was a big party buzz, but then I thought: this is only the beginning, I’m going for more .”

The Groningen swimmer quickly became aware of her talents. Dumoulin found this out a bit by accident when, as a 19-year-old, he was allowed to join the national U23 selection for the Nations Cup in Portugal. “I hadn’t ridden a flat price before and had never ridden a time trial. I didn’t have a time trial bike either. I borrowed it there. And I won, my very first victory. Then I thought: wow, apparently I can do this.”

Shortly afterwards was the ‘Baby Giro’, the Tour of Italy for promises. “We were completely lost there all week. I had just bought a new bicycle, a Chinese frame without a logo. Black crap frame. Wheels put in, handlebars on it. I won the time trial. That was my breakthrough. Then the various cycling team itself. I still have that bike by the way.”

Wüst lets time go back to December 2005, to the Olympic qualifying tournament for the Games a few weeks later. “All skaters had a protected status. So I had to win to be able to go to Turin at all. And then I won the 1,000, 1,500 and 3,000 meters. So my first international victory was Turin,” she refers to her formidable golden race at the 3,000 meters. Wüst was only nineteen years old.

The trio now enjoys ‘doing nothing and being able to do a lot’. “I have always been concerned with time, but I have now very consciously let go of rhythm and regularity,” says Kromowidjojo, who is still completely over the moon about her marriage to Ferry Weertman, who also stopped top swimming, in September. “I forced myself not to look at the clock all the time. I consciously chose not to have a plan.”

Still, she has something in mind. “Since 2014 I’ve been working on: this will ever stop. I think there should be more attention for that. A top athlete should think a bit during his career about: what do I like? Maybe fifteen minutes about it every week talk. I would like to guide. I have always been socially aware. There is more than sport.”

Wüst also does not miss the grip that characterizes the life of a top athlete. “I really like the fact that I no longer have that grip. That it doesn’t matter anymore. And it’s not so tight. That I go running when I want to run and go mountain biking when I want to mountain bike. Or that I I’m going to have a glass of wine on Tuesday evening if I want to. Still nice!”

And in the meantime she is busy with various things. “I am open to everything that comes my way. At TalentNED I am a top sports mentor. I support the trainers and coaches in developing the talents. Mentally, but also physically and technically. I also give presentations and after Christmas I’m going to do the analysis at the NOS I’m also going to do another master in coaching do at the Johan Cruyff University.”

Dumoulin makes the same noise. “I’m mainly enjoying life for a while, my free time. For the first time in my life, I feel.”

“I’m carefully looking at what I want to do next year. But I’m not in a hurry. What will come, will come. I think it will be something in cycling. That’s where my heart and my passion lie. But I can also imagine that it will be different at some point.”