23 apr 2024 om 19:52 Update: 13 uur geleden
Herbert Dijkstra is forced to stop as a cycling commentator at the NOS. The 57-year-old Drent suffers from serious back problems. Dijkstra will continue to comment on skating.
Dijkstra late in a conversation with it Dagblad van het Noorden know that he is still dealing with the consequences of a fall in 2022. The commentator fell through a hatch behind a door during the Beijing Winter Olympics, breaking his back.
Since then, Dijkstra has been recovering, but doctors now advise him to stop being a cycling commentator. In recent years, his voice could no longer be heard at the Tour de France, but he still occasionally commented on one-day races. The length of the races forces Dijkstra, who cannot sit for long, to stop now.
“Doctors all say: you can relieve the pain, but then you have to live differently. Without cycling commentary,” says Dijkstra. “My environment says so, my colleagues. And you still don’t want to give up. Until you say: now I have to. That is a long process of acceptance and sadness. There are also tears. These are moments of farewell.”
“My cycling commentary is coming to an end. Is that so bad? No. Everything is relative. I have seen quite a lot of things around me: deaths and sadness in my inner circle. So please stop: this isn’t that bad. The world isn’t falling apart, I’m still here. My life doesn’t end.”
Dijkstra went to the Tour de France 26 times in his career for the NOS, where he has been employed since 1994. He formed a duo with Maarten Ducrot for a long time. In 2021, Dijkstra received the Jean Nelissen Award, as a crowning achievement for his work in sports journalism.
