Yesterday Tom Dumoulin became a surprise winner of the award as Dutch Cyclist of the Year. The decision has created lots of debate and controversy in the Netherlands.

The Dutch cycling world has reacted with surprise to yesterday's announcement of the Ducth Cyclist of the Year award. The trophy was taken by Tom Dumoulin, not favourite Niki Terpstra.

Even the preisdent of the 48-member group that determines the winner, didn't agree with the decision.

"I voted for Terpstra. He has  won one of the most beautiful classics in the world," Theo de Rooij told NOS. "Personally, I do not understand that others have not voted for him."

There was a great discussion between the members of the commitee. Dumoulin got 53 votes, Terpstra 36. In total, 95 of the 110 members cast their vote.

"It was a beautiful cycling discussion. It was not about whether the result was the correct one. Dumoulin got the most votes and so he deserved to win," said De Rooij. "But it was a discussion about the difference between Dumoulin who has been riding a consistent season and excelled in time trials, and Terpstra. He had a great month in the spring and has benefited from a strong team."

Nonetheless, the result remains striking. In a year in which the Netherlands has won a great classic for the first time since 2001 and won a stage victory in the Tour de France (with Lars Boom) for the first time since 2005, the award was given to someone else than the winners of those two races. It raises questions.

"Our committee includes 110 members. The vast majority are still active in the cycling world. It is not only old men with cigars that cast their votes over a Persian rug and a table with a metal ashtray," said De Rooij, in an attempt to remove the cliché about Club van 48.

Like De Rooij, former riders Erik Breukink, Steven de Jongh and Erik Dekker also revealed that they had voted for Terpstra. Former national coach Egon van Kessel chose Dumoulin. 

"Rarely has it been so difficult to make an informed choice. Based on the victories, Terpstra was the obvious choice but then you could just ask a simple programme to calculate who is the riders of the year," Van Kessel told NOS.

De Rooij did not rule out that some of the members may have thought a bit about fair play. In August Terpstra caused controversey in the Eneco Tour. He was disqualified after pushing Maarten Wynants with his shoulder and later apologized for the action. "That could have played a role for certain members.

Furthermore, Terpstra has sometimes criticized the commission in the past. In 2012, he made it clear that he found it unjust that Lieuwe Westra and Lars Boom had not been nominated. Already back then, the discussion was the same: is a consistent season better than winning big races?