An encounter with Gert-Jan Theunisse

Plymouth, 16 May 1999

After 7 years of trying and a couple of almost-encounters, it finally was happening to me! Never expected that I had to travel all the way to the United Kingdom in order to be able to shake hands with my Dutch favourite... But it was definitely worth it!

Prologue Everything started with the invitation by my English email-friend to come and visit her in Plymouth. After half a year of hard work (dissertation and oral finals) I was certainly in need of getting away from everything and travel around for a bit. So I communicated to her that I definitely was going to accept the invitation, but didn't know yet when exactly. Shortly afterwards I discovered on the Internet an MTB-calender for 1999 and there you go... a very important race had been scheduled for Plymouth!!! I counted one to one and came to the conclusion that the chance of Gert-Jan being present in Plymouth was considerable. As manager and co-ordinator of the Specialized-Mountain Dew mountainbikers he simply couldn't allow himself not to show up at a World Cup race. Well, I am not the first person to go abroad only to follow the traces of my favourites and moreover, I had been unlucky in meeting Gert-Jan so many times that I strongly reckoned with missing out on him again - a financial risk for a 'poor ex-student', for it would be an expensive trip. Anyway, with the invitation of Terri already in my pocket, I made my decision; for even without meeting Gert-Jan, my stay in Plymouth was definitely going to be a memorable fun vacation (my email-friend and I had never met before). For my little plan to succeed, I still had to hope for one minor thingy: my friend and her family had to agree. And guess what? Fortune smiled on me again... it turned out that her husband is into mountainbiking as well and he had already mentioned visiting the event before he even knew I was interested. No need for scuples (abuse of their hospitality) from my side! Looking back, I now know for sure: it was the hand of providence.

Pulse 180 Although that particular Sunday started cloudy, I wanted to wear my T-shirt with the black and white picture which you can see on my index page. Since it had been raining most of the previous days, I wanted to be well-prepared for any kind of weather and packed a warm jumper, a jacket and an umbrella. This time, however, the weather gods were with me. Soon all the extra clothing ended in my backpack, for the atmosphere was warming up (or it was me who was getting hot... which became even worse later on) and the sun tried hard to break through the layer of clouds. My bag was crammed anyway, because for such a special occasion my photo camera and 'stuff to be autographed' were of course essential. On arrival at the site, courage left me. It was a vast area with stands and booths everywhere and people swarming about... how the heck should I be able to find Gert-Jan in there?! I wanted nothing more than hurry past all those booths - in search of Specialized and then jump upon the first person I'd see to ask for Gert-Jan. (Ha, hear who's talking... my shyness and waiting attitude usually force me to muster up courage before addressing a stranger; in other words, I am not a girl who easily steps up to whatever and whomever she thinks is interesting.) Well, things went slightly different because I had to consider the situation of my host family - my friend would come with me for the photos, but in order to prevent spending the rest of the day in search of relatives, we needed to set place and time for the reunion with hubbie and son. Therefore we first bought ourselves a programme, so that we would know at what time the mountainbike men's race was going to start and then adapted our planning to it. At that time it was about 75 minutes before the race, enough time to go and bother Gert-Jan first. (Thank goodness, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the whole day that much... too nervous for what was yet to come.)

~*~*~*~
It didn't take us much time to find the Specialized-camp. While my friend and her family decided to meet each other 30 minutes later at the 'big' wheel (it wasn't that big though), I had seen somebody in the colours of this MTB-team running in a particular direction. That way allright! Chatting away all of a sudden we found ourselves in front of the neatly fenced site where the Specialized-people had set up their stuff. At a glance I had noticed Gert-Jan already - an experienced eye knows where to look, doesn't it?
That was the moment the big stressing started: now what should I do? So, I just started retrieving my camera, in the meantime harassing Terri with a repeated "that's him, that's him!" At that point in time I was simply unable to speak any other words than those. Eventhough my knees were still wacky, I did a first attempt at taking a photo; needing forever to get the focus right and regain control over the muscles in my hand, and still managing to take blurred pictures. Anyway, the second photo turned out to be quite allright after all. Phew! Then it was time to explain my friend how to operate the camera, what great luck that she was not nervous. The name Theunisse didn't mean anything to her, so her pictures of him should be a lot sharper - and indeed all of them turned out to be great. As for myself, I could have remained standing there for the rest of the time, just watching... but that's not leading to a signature let alone a little chat. Off you go, I told myself while searching my bag for a pen and Gert-Jan's little book 'De fiets, de fiets en verder niets' (meaning: the bike, the bike, nothing but the bike), after which I checked my clothes and hair. Obviously, you don't want to look bad when you get to meet your fave! Yeah, and yet again bloody nervous... taking a deep breath while my shaky legs carried me three swirls around Terri, holding for a hiding pause behind her back. At that moment I saw how Gert-Jan, who until then had been sitting together with his father-in-law Piet Liebregts and according to me already must have noticed that somebody - that's I - was acting like a fool, got up and walked to the little fence (the other end from where I was standing). I was afraid that he was about to leave the spot. Now was the time to summon up my courage and do something or else I might fail an encounter with him!
With the little book and my pen I headed towards him. But Gert-Jan was not at all meaning to leave, he had been called over by someone. (When I later saw the pictures, this 'someone' turned out to be nobody less than his wife Lieske... Being completely focussed on Gert-Jan, my power of observation let me down a rather huge bit, and looking back it appears that there are a lot more obscure spots in my memory). Well, at a polite distance I waited until Gert-Jan would turn around again and then with cold sweat in my hands and a heart that thundered in my body, I asked him for a signature. He came over to me and said "sure!". When I handed him both pen and book he said something like "oh, on the book". Afraid that the ink would never last on the cover and also because I wished for something 'personal', I asked him to write something inside. That wasn't a problem.

Gert-Jan Theunisse signing my copy of his book
Secretly, I hoped that he would ask my name - something that is quite common use at signing sessions - for I thought it very difficult to tell him out of the blue who I was. Unfortunately he did not ask and simply filled the whole first page of the book - what exactly he had been writing, I only found out much later when I had landed on both feet again. Meanwhile my friend was clicking away with my camera (there was a brand new film inside and she had permission to use it all), only taking a break to ask for the time because of the 12.15 pm appointment with her family; there were some 7 minutes left, but I suspect her to have stayed longer... at least until the film had been used completely. When Gert-Jan had finished writing and returned the book and pen, I asked him, after inspecting my hands for clamminess and once more wiping them on my jeans, if I could also shake his hand please. With a big smile he complied with my request. I decided that the time was right to reveal my identity and said "I don't know whether or not this rings a bell, but I am Christina"... and he knew immediately!!! "Of all those letters and cards!" Wowy, my pride grew every minute. For I had seriously considered the possibility that, since Lieske handled the fanmail, my name would not be of much meaning to him.... Quite the contrary! I thanked him very much for the flowers they had sent me after my graduation and then I didn't know what else to say - so I just told him that my nerves made me lose my speech, but that I was extremely happy to finally get to meet him since my first attempt had been seven years before. Gert-Jan thought it also nice to get to talk face to face (my ego won't let me think that he just pretended) and he was very kind to me. Whenever I fell silent - which of course occurred a couple of times - he asked me something or just started telling me about life-after-professional-cycle-racing. From his eyes you could tell he liked talking about mountainbiking and he was interested in how I liked it there and why I had switched over to following MTB races. Would it have been very embarassing to him to hear me reply that the single reason for my switch had been his switch? We stood there talking for a little while (any notion of time had left me right from the start) when Lieske walked in our direction to discuss something with a racer who had appeared next to me. If you recognize him from this

photo please do send me an email for I don't have a clue who he is. After the racer drove off, Gert-Jan introduced me to Lieske by mentioning my name. She already had thought so, she said, as she had seen me flipping before I went over to Gert-Jan. She too, gave me plenty of time and attention and asked me how I was doing. Of course I thanked Lieske for the beautiful bouquet as well and told a little bit more about myself. She noticed that I was wearing a T-shirt with photo of Gert-Jan, but again I couldn't get anything out of my mouth that made the slightest sense. In retrospect one can be really ashamed of it, but at the moment itself brains and tongue just won't cooperate. Lieske apologized for not having had the time to take a look at my website... Of course I told her that that was no point at all and that the site isn't really that special because I, too, didn't have much time to tinker with it. (Erm, Lieske, if you've found the time to read this... would you please also sign my guestbook???)
The film in my camera started to rewind automatically after the last photo had been taken and my friend really had to go find her son who was waiting for her. She handed my camera back to me and said a quick 'hi' to Gert-Jan and Lieske before rushing away. Then Lieske went to do some work and left me with Gert-Jan who, fortunately, didn't show the slightest intention to move on yet. Among other things, he told me about his current occupations and how they had "gotten a little bit out of hand". When I asked him about his health, he replied that he constantly lives with pain and every exertion is answered with more pain. Only few weeks later I was shocked to hear he had had a heart attack, which he - thank God for that - survived. Anyway, we kept on talking for a while and at the next silence (ain't it a shame?) I thought it better to tell Gert-Jan that I didn't want to take more of his time, it had been great already. He nodded and said that it was time for him to do some pep-talk (now was approximately 30 minutes before the start of the race). After I thanked him once again, Gert-Jan said that the team would stay until quite long after the race "...maybe I'll see you later when the competition has ended..." And that, I did not need to be told twice!

~*~*~*~
When the race was done, my friends and I lingered at the finish a bit longer, for Filip Meirhaeghe (also Specialized) had become third and we expected it to be very crowdy at the team's stand because of signature-chasers. Finally, we made our way and we were proven right concerning the amount of people showing up. Gert-Jan was busy carrying around material and disappeared every now and then in the truck. Again I had to fight my shyness, for if I wanted to say hello one more time I had to yell his name out loud. My friend and her family slowly lost their patience with my doing nothing. Thus, when Gert-Jan appeared in the open again, I collected all my courage and shouted his name. To my surprize I had been loud enough at my first shot and he came over immediately. (He left his work to talk to me... nice thought!) As I didn't want to be of much trouble - he had been giving me already so much of his time - I said that I came to say goodbye, that it had been a pleasure meeting him and uttered yet another thank you. Gert-Jan didn't seem to be in any hurry and took the time for a chat about the race. Then we shook hands and agreed both that we should keep in touch... Well, I will just keep on writing (note dd Nov. 2001: seems he has moved again and I don't have the new address) and hope to meet him another time - hopefully when I am a bit more at ease. We said goodbye and went our ways. Even of this short chat Terri managed to take a few pictures - with her own camera just in case my photos would be ruined by some kind of disaster. Those turned out to be wonderful as well!

The Flowers In the first place I should say Thank You to my dear friend Terri and her husband: without their hospitality (sp?), willingness to help and moral support, my trip to England would probably have remained a dream. Of course I would like to thank Gert-Jan and Lieske with all of my heart for being so wonderfully kind to share some of their precious time with me and because they gave me the feeling that they didn't see me as ‘again one of the so many signature-chasers’.

It was a wonderful day!!!

* Climbed to great heights; --> updated October 2005
* Cycled through deep valleys;
* Honoured, reviled, forgotten;
* Fallen a thousand times...
* ...and gotten up again!

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