Exclusive interview: Robert Gesink on the return of Rabobank 🧡

'The young generation was punished for stuff they didn’t take part in. So it’s only a super nice thing that Rabobank has returned to this beautiful sport' says ex-rider

Robert Gesink in his Rabobank kit. Photo courtesy of Robert Gesink.

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On Thursday, we received official confirmation that Rabobank would return to the sport of cycling after departing in 2016.

The news elicited mixed reactions, ranging from overwhelmingly positive responses to a few murmurs of discontent.

Of course, Rabobank is no stranger to the world of cycling. They sponsored a men’s team from 1996 until 2012 and a women’s team until 2016. Rabobank was also a financial backer of kids' teams, race programmes, and cycling organisations across the Netherlands for decades. It was a cycling dynasty and institution.

No rider knows that more than Robert Gesink. The 38-year-old retired from the men’s WorldTour at the end of 2024, following a career that officially started with Rabobank’s development team in 2006.

Gesink saw it all, from the glory days of Óscar Freire, himself and others, to the desolate days in 2012 - when Rabobank began to pull the plug on their funding due to the clouds that blew across the peloton following USADA’s Reasoned Decision, and ended with a string of confessions from former Rabobank riders.

After that, the team hung on by the skin of their teeth, racing as Blanco – essentially a team funded by Rabobank but without the naming rights - through to Belkin and later the emergence of what we have now, a superpower branded as Visma-Lease a Bike.

In July, the Rabobank name will return to the men’s and women’s teams. Not only that, the bank will once again pour some of its substantial profits into the team’s existing Ready2Race programme, which encourages children into the sport.

It was incredibly telling that today’s news was announced simultaneously with a video featuring images of a young Gesink in Rabobank colours.

Young Gesink was a massive Rabobank fan. Photo courtesy of Robert Gesink.

Gesink’s photo was taken on a cycling trip with his late father. That day, a young Gesink rode up the fabled climb of La Redoute in the famous orange Rabobank jersey and a pair of trainers. It was his father who first put him on a bike, but Rabobank helped him along the way.

Years later, in 2007, to be exact, Gesink was back on the climb and soloing away to a win on stage 4 of the Tour of Belgium. The trainers had been replaced with something more suitable, but the Rabobank kit remained the same, although updated to a new incarnation.

“I saw the video the team made and the images they had of me in the Rabobank kit on La Redoute as a kid. I was probably 10 years old,” Gesink told me this morning.

“That said a lot about what Rabobank did for the sport in Holland throughout the years. Of course, there are always people remembering the negative stuff, but in general, the way I see it is that Rabobank made it possible for many kids and clubs to start cycling, organise racing and build the sport. Because of their funding, they gave us, in my opinion, the strong generation that we have now. There are still a lot of kids from back then who are still strong riders,” he said.