After 2.5 years in China, Theo Bos is back in the Netherlands. The five-time world champion became a legend in track cycling, but is now the national coach of the BMX riders. An interview about failed bets and talking about human rights in Beijing.
Bos, as a track and road cyclist, was not easily scared. But after half a year in the BMX world, he knows that the adrenaline threshold in his new sport is even higher.
During a training camp in Sarrians, France, Bos offered his riders 50 euros if they wanted to sit in a catapult attraction at a local fair. “Well, they just liked that,” Bos says laughing in an interview with NU.nl.
The 41-year-old from Hierden grew between 2002 and 2021 into one of the most successful Dutch track sprinters ever. He also won 37 races on the road. He never did BMX. Yet last winter, Bos chose an adventure as a national coach in the BMX, a discipline of cycling that was unknown to him.
His first impression? “It’s bizarre that you sprint down from a height equal to the roof of a house with everything you have and reach speeds of 60 kilometers per hour within 2.5 seconds. Then you immediately get a bump and fly through the air again. BMX riders are absolute artists on the bike.”
World Cup Papendal
The Dutch public can see Theo Bos in action for the first time as a national coach this weekend, at the World Cup in Papendal. Laura Smulders won on Saturday in the women’s race. The BMX riders will compete again on Sunday in Papendal.
Bos will pay for dinner due to lost bets
Bos has not yet dared to go off the 8-meter-high starting hill at the Papendal sports center himself. He did receive a BMX bike from his pupil Jaymio Brink. “My riders have a good laugh when I ride it, because it doesn’t look good, of course.”
During the training camp in Sarrians, Bos tried to start from a lower hill on a course for children. “The bet was that the riders had to put some money in the pot if I could jump over a – according to them – very easy bump. But on my first attempt, I almost fell on my face. So then rider Mitchel Schotman said: ‘Theo, don’t do it.'”
This bet also cost Bos money. “At the end of the year, we can pay for a nice dinner with all the trimmings because of me,” he says laughing.
Bos is fine with it. His first season as a BMX national coach is about getting to know a “new world”. “Before I signed, I did think: is it wise to become a coach in a sport that is technically completely different? But I think I can add something with my outside perspective.”
Niek Kimmann
Niek Kimmann is not participating in Papendal this weekend. The 2021 Olympic champion missed the Paris Games last year due to an inflamed heart muscle and is still recovering. Theo Bos: “Niek is building up in peace and quiet. And it’s going very well.”
Bos learned to be patient in China
Like so many top athletes, Bos only started thinking about a career as a coach at the end of his career. Then in 2021, he received an offer to become the national coach of the track sprinters in China. Bos left for Beijing in the middle of the corona pandemic for his first job as a coach.
He immediately had to quarantine for three weeks. “That gave me plenty of time to write out my training plan completely. I was inspired by skater Nils van der Poel, the Olympic champion in the 5 and 10 kilometers. After the Beijing Olympics, he put a document online with the title How to skate a 10k. So I also made a booklet.”
Bos’ starting point was the training schedule of the very successful Dutch track sprinters. That approach met with resistance. “In China, they still believe in the vision from the Soviet era: train very hard. At our training base in Beijing, I regularly came across Olympic shooters in the hallway in the evening. They were still busy with their pistol.”
“In China, I learned to listen carefully, be patient and make a plan together. They found that difficult, because Chinese athletes are not trained to give feedback.”
In general, there is less freedom in China. Did you hesitate to work in Beijing because of the human rights situation there?
“Of course, I talked about it beforehand. And during my 2.5 years in China, I tried to talk about human rights with my staff and the riders. I asked them if they knew the story of the student uprising in 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Or about their view on Hong Kong and Taiwan.”
“I have learned that Chinese people have a strict idea about that. As a Dutchman with a Western perspective, you can easily say that what China has done is wrong. You can also try to put yourself in the shoes of the Chinese and ask yourself where their ideas come from. In the end, we are all on this planet together. And we are all people with the same emotions.”
Do you have any regrets about going to China?
“No. It was a great experience.”
Bos has a one-year contract with KNWU
After the Paris Games, where the Chinese men’s team finished sixth in the team sprint, Bos’ contract in Beijing expired. Via via he heard that cycling association KNWU was looking for a BMX national coach and after a number of conversations he took the job.
“It was time to go back to the Netherlands. My parents are not the youngest anymore, so it’s nice to be able to spend more time with them.”
Bos has a one-year contract with the KNWU, but the intention is to continue until Los Angeles 2028. There, the Netherlands can win a medal in BMX for the fifth Olympic Games in a row.
“We are already doing fantastic in this sport,” says Bos. “I didn’t have to start from scratch. And in the past six months I have seen how motivated this BMX team is. I would love to help them win another medal in LA.”