On July 6, on the third stage of the Tour de France, Tom Dumoulin was involved a mass pileup and had to abandon the race with a dislocated and broken shoulder. Exactly 57 days later, the world looks much brighter: on the first rest day of the Vuelta, he is the leader of the general classification. His team spoke with Adriaan Helmantel, the team’s trainer, who worked intensively with Dumoulin to help him recover from his crash, set new goals and work hard to reach the level he is now showing in Spain. 

“After his crash in the Tour, Tom was patient,” Helmantel told giant-alpecin.com. “He had to recover from a broken shoulder and needed time to process this disappointment. In the beginning it was not known how long this recovery would take, and in the first week after the crash he was unable to do anything on the bike. In the second week he was able to do some careful training on the rollers, starting with short sessions of 15 minutes and working up to two-hour sessions at the end of the week. In the third week he was already training for five hours and was capable of doing some intensive training blocks too.

“Four weeks after his crash, he was back in full training and went to an altitude training camp in Livigno, Italy, where he trained hard and took major steps toward achieving his current form. Prior to the Tour de France he went to a training camp at altitude in Sierra Nevada, Spain. During a second altitude camp, the human body gets used to the altitude much faster because the effect of the first period is still there. The main advantage is that Tom could start his intensive training blocks much earlier. During his time there he had some ups and downs but the training improved, especially toward the second half. Following one recovery week he was ready and went to Puerto Banús for the start of the Vuelta a España.

“We monitored Tom’s training, and we had some good phone conversations to guide and advise him during that period. One day he sent me a message in reaction to his training program: ‘I think that is very heavy. I had less in mind. Can we talk?’ I called to discuss it, and afterward I saw that he had trained even more than we initially planned.”

About the mental aspect of this process, Helmantel said: “We had some conversations on the phone. During our second talk he said he was done feeling sorry for himself and he was looking forward to the remainder of the season; he wanted to go for it again. We had this conversation one week after the crash. After that he did not have any setbacks mentally and was determined to come back stronger. We immediately set our target and started working hard. Initially, our goal was for him to peak for the third week and the TT world championships, in order to deliver a good time trial in the Vuelta and choose some stages to target for a result there as well.

“You have to give an athlete the time and opportunity to process a challenging event. You can compare it to a mourning process. Everyone deals with it differently.

“A major factor that played a role here was the physical impact of his crash in combination with the training load. So we paid extra attention to that and kept in close contact with the team’s physicians as well. But in everything, we observed that he was ready to race again and that his form was better than ever.” This was confirmed by the training data analyzed by the team’s scientific expert Teun van Erp.

Helmantel continues: “Before Tom went to Livigno I thought his level would be high in the Vuelta, but I thought he needed more racing rhythm, which turned out not to be the case. So although I expected his level to be this high later in the Vuelta, in that sense he surprised me by reaching such a high level this early. But it is confirmation that he comes out of hard training blocks really strong and is immediately ready to race at the highest level. Where other riders need races to gain intensity, Tom can hurt himself enough in his training. This could be one of his biggest talents. At least it’s a special talent he possesses, both physically and mentally. We also noticed it at this year’s Tour Down Under. Without any racing he was already ready to compete for the win.”

Regarding expectations for the remaining part of the Vuelta, Helmantel said: “So far the stages have suited Tom really well, as they weren’t too tough during the stage and with uphill finishes of 20 to 30 minutes. He is really good at efforts with a duration of 20 to 30 minutes, and his long time trials are also improving. Tomorrow will be the first real test to see whether he has a chance to keep the jersey. It’s a short stage with a lot of climbs one after the other. Tom is developing the ability to pace his effort over multiple climbs, so it will be interesting to see how he handles tomorrow’s stage. In the past he hasn’t shown strong results in those kinds of stages, so this will be new for him. If he loses a lot of time tomorrow then so be it, but it isn’t impossible that he will still be in red tomorrow evening. It’s hard to predict.

“If he has to go really deep in the third week to hold on to a top 10 in the GC, it could be disadvantageous for his form after the Vuelta, of course. If he still has his sights on a podium in the final GC, you have to ask yourself whether you want to give that up for the world championships TT. But if his form is still strong toward the end, he could also come out of the Vuelta really strong. He showed this last year at the Eneco Tour, which took place after the Tour de France. So this is also a scenario. After the Vuelta he will go straight to the US to focus on quiet training and recovery ahead of the worlds. It is really hard to predict the impact of the Vuelta. As long as he is leading the overall he won’t give up. Also, the mental aspect will play a role there. One thing we know for sure is that his current performance is really good in multiple senses for his overall development as both a rider and a person.”