Leo van Vliet backs successor Tom Dumoulin: “If I didn’t trust him, I’d have chosen someone else”

In January, Leo van Vliet announced that Tom Dumoulin will succeed him as race director of the Amstel Gold Race in 2027, bringing Van Vliet’s 30-year spell in charge to an end. Like he once was by founder Herman Krott, Van Vliet says he personally approached the former Giro d’Italia winner — and he has full confidence in his successor.

Speaking on the Grote Plaat podcast, Van Vliet was clear about his decision. “If I didn’t trust Tom to do it better than me, I wouldn’t have chosen him,” he said. So the faith is there, even if the Dutch spring classic is set to change in the background.

The Amstel Gold Race will be taken over by Flanders Classics, the organisation behind most of the major Flemish spring races. According to Van Vliet, that should only streamline the process. “Flanders Classics is a bigger organisation and has people for everything. In my time I had to do many different things — my job is now, as it were, split into seven parts,” he explained.

Big course changes won’t happen straight away, Van Vliet insisted. “They can change the route when I’m definitively gone,” the Dutchman said. “As long as I’m still closely involved, I decide what happens.” After so many years organising the race, letting go isn’t easy either. “I still find it difficult to step back — you’ve been working on it for so many years, you can’t just switch that off.”

The 70-year-old remains hugely proud of the race. “It’s a great race, and it’s beautiful to see how it has grown over the years,” he said. That is why it stings, in his view, that the media debate about a potential “sixth Monument” often includes Strade Bianche, but not the Amstel Gold Race. “It’s really unjustified that Strade Bianche is in that discussion — Monument status should be about history,” Van Vliet argued.

Van Vliet also noted that the whole obsession with counting Monuments has become much louder in recent years. “Before, it wasn’t talked about so much how many Monuments someone had won — now you hear it regularly,” he said. For him, the priority is that the race runs well, rather than chasing a label. “With some Monuments, nothing has changed since I was racing,” added the former Gent–Wevelgem winner.