Nils Eekhoff's recovery goes well: "Hopefully I can go outside again next week"

Nils Eekhoff has been known for years as a talent for the classics, but he is now 28 years ‘old’. He was eager to shed the label of eternal promise, and after his victory at Nokere Koerse last year, it finally seemed to be happening A rare muscle tear in his calf prevented that, and this coming spring he will be recovering from a double pelvic artery surgeries “If all goes well, racing again by the end of May is a realistic goal,” he tells WielerFlits.

In the special WielerFlits Podcast during the NIBC Tour of Holland, Eekhoff already mentioned that for some time he felt he wasn’t progressing in training and that a series of races weren’t working at all. In October there was a revival with Binche-Chimay-Binche (second) and Paris-Tours (eleventh), but after the season it became clear to the Dutchman that something was wrong. By mid-December the examinations were completed, and it turned out that something had to be done. Just over a month later he underwent surgery on both pelvic arteries—a particularly harsh setback.

Denial phase
Eekhoff has to miss his beloved spring classics again because of the surgery. “In some races I felt like I had no chance at all. I had to keep myself calm the whole race and then make one final outburst at the end to get a result. I started thinking about that, but that has never been where my strength lay. It just didn’t add up. It went against my feeling and my nature. The team doctor had once suggested I should check my pelvic arteries. I didn’t want to—until my doubts grew.”

The classics specialist therefore decided to have everything examined after all. “It could only give me peace of mind. But then it turned out there was actually more going on. There had been an ongoing process for quite some time. It creeps in and only worsens. I won Nokere Koerse last year at half strength, I think you could say that. In my neo-pro years (2020 and 2021, ed.) I was quite close to the world’s best. I slowly lost that connection. Last fall was the low point for me. I simply couldn’t keep up in races that used to suit me well.”

In the intervening years, he always looked for the problem elsewhere. A concussion, poor training, an injury, a wrong build-up. According to Eekhoff, there was always something to blame the poor performances on. With the diagnosis, at least a reasonable explanation has been found for the negative feeling – he was at his wit’s end at one point – that Eekhoff experienced. He now holds on to stories from riders who have returned to a high level after the same injury, such as Annemiek van Vleuten and Marianne Vos. 

One step back, hopefully two forward
“That’s obviously where you pin your hopes,” he says. “That is ultimately what I live for, what I train very hard for and give everything for: to compete with the world’s best in the tougher races and the spring classics. I hope this operation will be a solution and that it will mainly give me peace of mind so I don’t have to look for the cause elsewhere anymore. It’s important that I take the time and rest for recovery. That maximizes the chance of a good outcome. After that, I can calmly build up again. I hope to have some good results come autumn.”

The decision to miss his beloved spring was Eekhoff’s own. “I’m in a contract year That brings an extra challenge. This injury wasn’t getting better, I noticed that last autumn. It was only getting worse. So there was no point in postponing it. I didn’t get any energy from it anymore; I was basically just messing around. If I had chosen to operate only after the classics, I would have lost the entire autumn as well. Then you end up with nothing twice. That’s why I chose, with a lot of pain in my heart, to miss my beloved spring.”

Recovery after the surgery is going according to Eekhoff’s expectations. “It’s on an upward curve and that feels good. The first four weeks it was almost entirely rest. That time passed fairly quickly. I kept myself busy with gaming, doing crosswords, reading books and assembling LEGO sets. For two weeks now I’ve been allowed to really move again. It was a shock how much fitness I lost during the first half hour on the rollers. Now I’m allowed to do three-quarters of an hour and I see my fitness level and numbers slowly improving.”

“I also swim twice a week as an extra activity,” he continues. “Next week I have my check-up at the hospital. After that, in principle, I’m allowed outside cycling for two hours per day again. If everything goes normally after that, according to my doctor, it is realistic to aim to race my first race again at the end of May. That certainly won’t be at top level with the training time I will have had until then. I shouldn’t want it any earlier either, to avoid rushing it. That’s why I’m setting myself the goal of mainly aiming for a good autumn. That’s very doable.”

Expiring contract
This autumn Eekhoff hopes to regain his old level. “The plan isn’t made yet; but I always really like the Belgian autumn classics,” says the rider for Picnic Post NL. “I think there’s a good chance that’s what I will focus on. Of course, I am mindful of my expiring contract. But I am not worried about my future as a professional cyclist; that’s not an issue. I’m not afraid of that. The surgery was successful. What the doctors wanted and needed to do has succeeded. The kink is removed from the arteries. They are in good shape again. I’m now fully focused on my recovery.”

“Whether I see myself riding elsewhere than for Picnic PostNL is a strange thought,” he continues. Since his first year as an under-23 in 2017, Eekhoff has ridden for Iwan Spekenbrink’s team. “I do think about it sometimes and which team that would be. But I find it difficult, it feels so familiar here. That said, I’m not ruling anything out. I do have the feeling that a change of scenery can sometimes be beneficial. For some people, that can be good. Whether that already applies to me, I don’t know. I’m keeping my options open,” he says about his expiring contract with Picnic PostNL.