Laurens ten Dam on his time at Picnic PostNL predecessor: 'The grass is greener somewhere else'

Ten Dam began his account with high praise for In de Waaier and the NOS, which first broke the story. “But I do have some thoughts on this, so to speak. First of all, if this team were to disappear, it would, of course, be a real shame for Dutch cycling. I once started out at the BankGiro Lottery, from which this team emerged. They’ve been around that long.”

The Dutchman finally returned in 2016. “Back then, of course, I had my issues with the management style. But now that you’re a team leader yourself, you realise why things are managed that way. Back then, I was a bit of a spoiled brat who thought, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’ But as a leader and owner, you have to make choices.”

"It's a work philosophy they have," Ten Dam pointed out. “If you don’t feel comfortable with that, then you have to ride for another team, right? I also have to give Iwan credit for allowing it—because I was riding there at a significant pay cut, living in America, and racing in Europe. What other team manager would have allowed that?”

Ten Dam pointed out that he does feel he was still part of the team at its peak, in 2017 and 2018, and that things have gone downhill since then. “The trend is downward, and they’re no longer even a shadow of the team they were ten years ago. Back then, they came up with a method, and it’s never really been adjusted since.”

He gave an example of how things could have been different. “I was team captain once, in the Tour of Catalonia. A race I’ve ridden 14 times. The team’s protocol was that the first meal you got was dinner. You had to take care of lunch yourself. But I knew I was heading into a week-long WorldTour race and just wanted to eat ‘well.’”

"So I just went there for lunch and brought two riders with me," ten Dam recalled. "I knew there would be a fuss about it, but I said: I know that's the rule, but I'm doing this from a performance perspective. And after that, there was actually a rice cooker ready on the bus with tuna, so we were able to work things out together. I didn’t feel like it was a culture of fear.”

At the same time, he did notice a big difference compared to other teams. “Take the 2017 Tour, where we won four stages. Primož Roglič won an Alpine stage back then—their first stage—and we were staying at the same hotel as LottoNL-Jumbo. They walked in there with a speech and immediately announced: ‘We’re doubling the bonus.’ Meanwhile, we won our fourth stage a day later and didn’t get any bonuses at all.”

"Of course, you can complain about that, but you also signed up for it. When you sign your contract, you know you won’t get any bonuses. If the grass is greener somewhere else and it’s better for you to move on, then you do that after two or three years. That’s what I did,” said ten Dam, who ended his career with CCC in 2019.

"I've shrugged more often than I've been startled. They're rigid, and sometimes you value yourself more than they do, but if that gap starts to get too wide, you have to leave. Although it's worth noting that someone like Martijn Tusveld might not have had that chance," he adds.

Finally, Ten Dam wanted to point out that he was not approached for the investigation. “I agree that there’s something wrong with the management style if there are seventy stories like that. It’s no coincidence that I left in 2018, and I was still an established rider at the time. I don’t agree with everything the team does, but I didn’t experience a culture of fear.”