The following feature forms part of our 'I love the 1990s series' with Alasdair Fotheringham going back to the final amateur World Championships in 1995 to speak to race winner Danny Nelissen. The Dutchman, plagued by a heart condition during his career, was one of the first riders to seek technological advantages and used those methods to pull off one of the finest wins witnessed at a major championships.
For many, the 1995 World Championships men’s professional road-race in Duitama, Colombia is remembered as one of the most spectacularly brutal in cycling’s modern-day history. The wet weather, racing at altitude 2,500 metres above sea level and the staggering amount of climbing demanded by the road circuit allhelped lift the 1995 Worlds to a level of difficulty similar to the legendary Worlds in Sallanches in 1980.
Then there was the high drama of the closing laps, as Abraham Olano attacked from a group of less than a dozen riders, only to puncture and race home seconds ahead of his chasers on a deflated back wheel. It was nailbiting stuff of the most unpredictable variety, the race’s hardness highlighted by the fact only 20 riders - mudspattered and exhausted - finished. Last but not least, the controversy about why Olano, not Spanish team leader Miguel Indurain, had managed to win when Indurain was clearly the race’s strongest rider, rumbled on and on afterwards for months - except in Spain that is, where asking Olano if he "really should have won the 1995 Worlds” was a question that plagued the Basque for the rest of his career.
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On paper, the outcome of the amateur World Championships race, held on the same high-altitude circuit in Duitama the day before, had been set to be equally uncertain. And certainly on television, the racing looked to be just as unpredictable - something that's part of the great appeal of the U-23 World’s events, even now.
The elite men's podium at the Worlds in 1995: Miguel Indurain, Abraham Olano and Marco Pantani
However, in the mind of the eventual amateur World Championships winner, Danny Nelissen, victory was the only possible outcome. In fact, his conviction that he was going to cross the line in first place was so great that 24 hours previously he had told his uncle Jean - a cycling commentator for Dutch state television in the Colombia Worlds - to get the champagne ready for celebrating, “because I will be solo at the finish and World Champion.”
Pacing makes perfect
Scattered all over the Andes
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