Tudor's Arvid de Kleijn beaten unconscious by teenagers during training ride

The 32-year-old Tudor Pro Cycling rider told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that the incident happened while he was building towards his comeback. De Kleijn had passed a group of around ten teenagers, aged roughly 15 to 17, when they began shouting abuse at him. The words cut especially deep: they used the name of the disease that had recently killed his father.

Instead of riding on, De Kleijn turned back and tried to speak to them.

“I tried to talk to them,” he said. “I asked why they had to use that word, and why they were behaving like that in the first place. When I asked them to stop because my father had died from that disease, it only got worse.”

According to De Kleijn, the group appeared to be under the influence.

“They had probably been drinking, and maybe more than that,” he said. “There was no real conversation to be had.”

When De Kleijn decided to leave, the confrontation turned physical.

“They started grabbing at me as I tried to ride away,” he said. “One of them was just behind me on the right. Suddenly he hit me, and I was knocked unconscious.”

The blow left him with a broken nose. Bystanders who witnessed the incident helped him back to his feet, while several members of the group were stopped at the scene. The person believed to have thrown the punch left quickly and, according to De Kleijn, has not yet been found.

“It is mainly sad,” De Kleijn said. “You see more often that this generation has no respect for other people. Fortunately, there were people there who saw what happened and helped me. The process will take a while, but I am glad they are not simply getting away with it.”

The assault came at a moment when De Kleijn was trying to regain stability after a turbulent fifteen months. Last year, a crash at the UAE Tour left him with a complicated collarbone fracture that required surgery and a long recovery. The bone was broken in three places, with loose fragments making the operation more difficult, and surgeons inserted a hook into his shoulder joint. De Kleijn was told he could barely train for twelve weeks. The pain was so severe he needed heavy painkillers.

Even after a second operation to remove the hook, the discomfort lingered. When he won two stages at the Tour of Langkawi in September, he could only raise one arm in celebration. His father Cees was later diagnosed with terminal cancer and died in February, shortly after the birth of De Kleijn’s daughter Fye in January.

Those events had already forced cycling into the background. The birth of his daughter was a source of joy, but it was also difficult. His wife Céline needed time to recover, so De Kleijn stayed at home to care for his family rather than join a team training camp, with Tudor giving him the space to do so.

The attack came just as De Kleijn was trying to find rhythm again on the bike, after a year in which racing had repeatedly been pushed aside by injury, grief and family concerns.

Now, De Kleijn is looking again towards the peloton. His contract expires at the end of the season, and at 32 he knows he still has to prove his place. But his motivation remains intact. “I am not the youngest anymore,” he said. “But I still have a lot of motivation and ambition to continue for a few more years.”

For De Kleijn, racing is more than a job at this point. After everything that has happened, it has also become a way to move forward. “After this period, I am really looking forward to racing again,” he said. “It is also an outlet.”