Picnic-PostNL orders independent probe after reports of a fear culture in its cycling team

What the reports allege

NOS Sport and the cycling platform In De Waaier published their investigation on 15 October, based on confidential interviews with 71 people who work or have worked for Picnic-PostNL, a WorldTour team that employs 120 people. According to the reports, many who left the team did so traumatised by a culture of fear and a working environment they judged unsafe. The Dutch riders' union VVBW and the Centrum Veilige Sport Nederland, the Dutch centre for safe sport, had also received reports of a possible fear culture inside the team. Union secretary Jeroen van Keulen said the signals were worrying and very clear, and that it was now up to the team to take measures, without specifying which. He added that the account of former rider Martijn Tusveld ran through the reports the union had received, and that the complaints touched not only riders quickly dropped from the squad but also some more prominent names.

A rider's account

Martijn Tusveld rode for the team from 2018 to 2024, under the names Team Sunweb and Team DSM along the way. He recalled the evening of 22 October 2020, after the 18th stage of the Giro d'Italia, when sporting director Rudi Kemna asked him in the team bus what he thought of the tactic chosen that day. Tusveld said they could have done it differently. At the end of that season he was told he was creating a 'negative atmosphere' and would not be on major race schedules for 2021. His contract was not extended, but two riders gave up their contracts at the last moment, which let him stay three more seasons until he had to leave at the end of 2024. Tusveld told NOS he became anxious and stopped speaking up, and he reported depressive complaints in 2021. He ended his professional career at the end of 2025.

In his own words, the period after that Giro left him silent:

I thought: I keep my mouth shut and say yes and amen. And that is what I did for the rest of my years with this team.

Management and staff accounts

Nicolas Roche, an Irish rider who joined the team in 2019 and rode there for the last three seasons of his career, told NOS that the management was not suited to cycling. He recalled a training camp in January 2021, when staff including sporting director Rudi Kemna and head of science Narelle Neumann confronted him after he returned an hour late from a longer ride. Roche said that giving his opinion was treated as a problem because it went against the team's protocol and plans. Former trainer Adriaan Helmantel, who worked with Tom Dumoulin, said that from late 2017 trainers were no longer meant to have direct contact with riders or with each other. Helmantel described the team's earlier strength as lively energy built through brainstorming with the riders. De Volkskrant reported that the current season is the worst in the team's WorldTour history, with three victories so far. Frits Biesterbos took the team's first WorldTour win of the year at the Tour of Guangxi. Owner Iwan Spekenbrink did not want to comment when journalists contacted him.

The team's response

Picnic-PostNL said the testimonies of current and former riders and staff had moved it deeply, but that it did not recognise itself in the overall picture the publications painted. The team said it would commission an independent and professional investigation into how its culture is experienced in practice and how far it reflects the culture it aspires to. It pointed to existing channels for raising concerns, including a personal coach for each rider, a Rider Committee and confidential advisers for staff. In its statement the team wrote:

We are proud of what we have built since 2008 with many people in and around this team.

The team added that it would take the outcomes seriously and carry out any improvements those findings call for.