Piet Moeskops

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Piet Moeskops Road cycling
Piet Moeskops (1919)
Piet Moeskops (1919)
To person
Full name Pieter Daniel Moeskops
Nickname De reus uit de polder
Date of birth November 13, 1893
date of death November 16, 1964
nation NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands
discipline train
End of career 1933
Most important successes
UCI track world championships
1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1926 World Champion - Sprint
Last updated: August 12, 2020
Piet Moeskops (l.) With Jan Derksen (center) and Arie van Vliet (1963)
The grave of Piet Moeskops and his wife Ida Berger in the Oud Eik en Duinen cemetery in The Hague

Pieter Daniel "Piet" Moeskops (born November 13, 1893 in Loosduinen , The Hague ; † November 16, 1964 in The Hague) was a Dutch cyclist . In the 1920s he became world champion in sprinting on the track five times .

Athletic career

Piet Moeskops learned to ride a bike as a delivery driver for his father's business, who was a poultry dealer. He was of imposing stature (1.90 meters at over 90 kilograms) and initially worked as a wrestler. At the age of 19 he drove his first races on the local track in Loosduinen. In 1914 he was the first Dutch champion in track sprint. Overall, he was ten times the Dutch title holder in the sprint, as well as one time in the team pursuit . Immediately after the First World War , he switched to the professionals . He had to overcome considerable resistance because his father wanted him to take up a civil profession. Piet prevailed, however, and went to Brussels to study there, especially in the track races. He was considered a particularly talented technician and tactician.

In 1921 Moeskops became world champion in the sprint for the first time by beating the reigning world champion Robert Spears from Australia in the final. He was able to repeat this success in the following years up to 1926, except in 1925, when the World Cup was held in Amsterdam of all places. In 1929 and 1930 he was runner-up behind the French Lucien Michard .

For the fifth and last time, Piet Moeskops became world champion at the UCI track world championships in Milan in 1926 . There was a scandal that occupied the Dutch sports press for almost two years and had further consequences: When the Dutch delegation presented itself in the stadium with Gerard Leene as the flag bearer, Moeskops, who was defeated by Leene in the Dutch championship, drove a white one Towel on a stick over the train. When a Dutch official, who saw this behavior as a provocation, tried to wrest the stick with a towel from him, a fight broke out in which Moeskops punched the man. Moeskop's behavior, claiming to have been trying to make a “joke”, was strongly condemned in the press and was cursed as a “flag molester” on his return to the Netherlands. Moeskops was banned, which led to such fierce controversy in the cycling association Nederlandse Wieler Bond that a new association, the Nederlandsche Wielren Unie (predecessor of the later Koninklijke Nederlandsche Wielren Unie (KNWU)), was founded. Due to his success, Moeskops had made track cycling popular in the Netherlands, which paved the way for younger riders like Arie van Vliet and Jan Derksen .

In 1930 Moeskops had a major operation from which he recovered difficultly, and in 1933 he ended his cycling career. In 1935 he married Ida Berger, the marriage remained childless; Moeskops had a daughter from a previous relationship who grew up with Moeskops' parents. The couple themselves raised an illegitimate child of Ida Berger's daughter. After the end of his active career, Moeskops was a wealthy man who managed his real estate wisely.

In 1939, Piet Moeskops acted as the chauffeur of his friend, the journalist Joris van den Bergh , who was the head of the Dutch team, during the Tour de France . Van den Bergh benefited from Moeskops' knowledge of French . In the 1930s and 1940s he was team leader for the Dutch railroad drivers at World Championships and Olympic Games; Derksen, who, like Arie van Vliet, came from bourgeois circles, remembered Moeskops, who was more of a rustic nature than a "callous loudmouth". In 1963, the 70-year-old tried to stand on Dutch television and died a year later. His grave is in the Dutch cemetery Oud Eik en Duinen in The Hague .

In the Dutch towns of Nijmegen , Gouda and Loosduinen , a district of The Hague since 1923, streets are named after Piet Moeskops. The Italian sculptor Ezio Roscitano created a monument to Moeskops that he did not like and whose whereabouts are unknown. In the book Wielerhelden van Oranje it is said that it was Joris van den Bergh who set a monument to Moeskops with his book Te midden der kampioenen , in which the athlete was portrayed in a very idealized way.

successes

1917
  • Dutch Championship Sweater.jpg Dutch champion - sprint
1920
  • Dutch Championship Sweater.jpg Dutch champion - sprint
1921
1922
1923
1924
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
  • Dutch Championship Sweater.jpg Dutch champion - sprint
1932
  • Dutch Championship Sweater.jpg Dutch champion - sprint

literature

  • Fred van Slogteren: Wielerhelden van Oranje . Arko Sports Media, Nieuwegein 2003, ISBN 978-90-77072-42-4 , pp. 142-144 .

Web links

Commons : Piet Moeskops  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wim van Eyle: Een Eeuw Dutch Wielersport . Het Spectrum, Utrech / Amsterdam 1980, pp. 111 .
  2. ↑ a b A.A. van Gils: Moeskops, Pieter Daniel (1893–1964). In: resources.huygens.knaw.nl. November 12, 2013, accessed August 12, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Matty Verkamman: Champagne, wijn, warm melk met cocaïne. In: trouw.nl. March 22, 1999, accessed August 12, 2020 (Dutch).
  4. ^ Association of German cyclists (ed.): Radsport . No. 47/1964 . German sports publisher Kurt Stoof, Cologne, p. 12 .
  5. ↑ a b van Slogteren, Wielerhelden , p. 142.
  6. ↑ a b c Fred van Slogteren: Piet Moeskops een boeiend en veelzijdig mens (deel II). In: wielersport.slogblog.nl. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Benjo Maso : Nederland heeft de le trui. Atlas Contact, Uitgeverij, 2015, ISBN 978-90-450-2635-0 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  8. ↑ van Slogteren, Wieler heroes , S. 144th
personal data
SURNAME Moeskops, Piet
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moeskops, Pieter Daniel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Loosduinen
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1964
Place of death The hague