The past 37 editions of the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships have brought silver and bronze medals for the Netherlands. Since Joop Zoetemelk's win in 1985, Dylan van Baarle, Steven Rooks, and Léon van Bon have all stood on the final podium next to the rainbow jersey wearer.
But none of them, nor the multitude of stars and talented male riders the Dutch have sent to the Worlds over the years, had managed to take the rainbow jersey before Mathieu van der Poel's solo ride in Glasgow on Sunday.
The win, taken via a 22km solo ride after attacking an elite lead group, brought a "big emotion", Dutch team coach Koos Morenhout said after the 271km race.
"You can never guarantee that they win because you never know how the race evolves in the end. But it's a big emotion," he told Cyclingnews after watching his leader ride away from Wout van Aert, Tadej Pogačar, and Mads Pedersen to score gold on the road for the first time.
"The fact that he was there with the best was comforting and exciting and then he rode away and had that crash… We didn't know exactly how far he was in far of those other three best riders in the world. Then his advantage started to build again and if you see that he has 1:30 you know the chance is fairly big that he's going to make it."
"Once you're there behind them and you see him riding and he was also able to enjoy the last 5km more or less to, to enjoy his victory and to enjoy the crowds. For us, that was emotional to see."
The win was, of course, not without drama. From the race-stopping protest early on to the crash shortly after Mathieu van der Poel's attack that left him with a broken shoe and tears to his jersey and shorts, there were few dull moments across the course of the six-hour race.
The slide-out on a wet bend on the technical Glasgow city circuit had hearts in mouths, and with no race radio for those chasing or for Van der Poel himself, then 30 seconds up the road, it was anyone's guess as to who would prevail. At least, that was before he got back up and continued to make time on the chase group.
"I don't think it was much of a factor," Moerenhout said of the lack of radios for those chasing Van der Poel. "In the end, he was already that fast on the bike and in his rhythm and gaining ground."
"We passed Mads, Wout, and Tadej and saw that their race was on the limit. If you have a radio, you can say to speed up but if the legs aren't there anymore then it's over. If it would've hurt him then it'd be a different story."
The race from Edinburgh to Glasgow, taking in 10 laps of the challenging, rain-soaked circuit stretched to just over six hours as well as the hour stoppage. Such a long day in the saddle, especially with no way to contact riders, makes the World Championships one of the hardest days of the year to plan for.
Moerenhout said as much, noting that "the race never goes to plan", though the framework of Van der Poel's victory – a man-to-man battle between several leaders – was something the Dutch team were hoping for.
"Knowing this circuit and having seen the races we've seen so far, it was easy to tell that the final was going to happen early in the race," he said. "The ideal situation for us was that it would be a man-to-man fight and luckily it came to that. Then it's just about who is best."
"The advantage with a rather like Mathieu is that he can handle a lot of different tactics and scenarios. This was one of them. If the strength of the Belgian team would continue until deep in the final, it would have been a problem."
"But in the end, they had to chase down Alberto Bettiol. We were lucky that it was such a strong Belgian team and that they took their responsibility. In the end, Mathieu proved to be the best because the best were there and he rode away from them."
