Tom Dumoulin will become the new race director of the Amstel Gold Race, succeeding Leo van Vliet after the event’s 60th edition in April 2026. For the 35-year-old former Giro d’Italia winner, the appointment lands as both a homecoming and a shift into the organisational side of a race that, he says, first made him want to ride a bike in the first place.
“It feels like a great honour and responsibility,” Dumoulin said in the Amstel Gold Race announcement, confirming he will take over from 2027, following in the footsteps of founder Herman Krott and long-serving director Van Vliet.
A handover after 30 years under Van Vliet
Van Vliet, now 70, has directed the Amstel Gold Race since 1996, taking over from Krott, who led the first 30 editions from 1966 to 1995. The 2026 race therefore marks the end of a rare period of continuity in major cycling, with only two race directors across six decades.
“It’s quite remarkable to realise that I’ve had the opportunity to experience 30 editions as race director,” Van Vliet said at the press conference announcing the change. “The 60th edition in 2026 feels like the right time for me to pass on the baton to a new generation.”
Dumoulin will spend the 2026 edition learning the role alongside Van Vliet before formally taking charge for 2027.
Photo Credit: Amstel Gold Race“They came almost past my house”, Dumoulin’s personal link to the race
Dumoulin’s connection to the race has always been more personal than symbolic. In comments carried by ANP, he described growing up in Maastricht without a cycling family, but being taken each year to watch the Amstel Gold Race when the finish was still on the Maasboulevard.
“They came almost past my house,” he said, recalling the local loop and the speed of the descent off the Sint-Pietersberg. Dumoulin also remembered seeing the sprint between Michael Boogerd and Lance Armstrong, a moment he said left an impression even before cycling had become his sport.
When he decided at 15 to switch from football to something else, the race was the prompt.
“The Amstel Gold Race made me start cycling,” he said. “To now be race director of it, I think that’s really cool.”
What changes as Flanders Classics takes organisational responsibility
The appointment comes with a structural shift behind the scenes. Since 2025, the Amstel Gold Race has fallen under Flanders Classics, the Belgian organiser best known for races such as the Tour of Flanders. Dumoulin said that changes what the title of race director practically means.
“Leo was fully responsible, really the boss,” he explained in ANP. “That responsibility will lie with Flanders Classics.”
Dumoulin described his role primarily as sporting, covering the route, safety planning, and consultation with municipalities, safety authorities and police, alongside broader tasks such as sponsor and relationship work. He also noted that the job is no longer the hands-on logistical grind it once was.
“The time of digging trenches the day before to lay cables is over,” he joked, adding that now he can pick up the phone to Flanders Classics when needed.
Photo Credit: Amstel Gold RaceA director who knows the course, even if the results never matched the fit
Dumoulin rode the Amstel Gold Race six times during his career, with his best result 20th in 2014, and his last appearance in 2022. In retrospect he sees it as a race that should have suited him more.
“In theory I should have been really good in the spring,” he said, reflecting on his early-career explosiveness on short climbs. “I made the Amstel Gold Race a real goal a few times, but it never worked out.”
That familiarity with both the race and the modern peloton is part of the logic of the appointment. But Dumoulin was also blunt about what he cannot do: he does not believe his presence will change which superstars choose to start.
“I’m not going to approach any rider,” he said in ANP. “They have to make their own choice.”
What happens next
The 60th Amstel Gold Race will take place on Sunday 19 April 2026, and will double as an anniversary edition and Van Vliet’s farewell year in charge. Dumoulin will spend that weekend shadowing the existing team before formally stepping into the role for 2027.
For the race itself, the key theme is continuity rather than overhaul. Dumoulin has stressed he is not planning to “turn the whole Amstel Gold Race upside down”, while acknowledging he has ideas about how the event could grow and how the public could be brought closer to the race, subject to what Flanders Classics wants to do next.
In other words, the change is less about rewriting Amstel, and more about handing its next phase to someone whose relationship with the race began on the roadside, long before it became a line on his own palmarès.
