The death this week of Dutch photographer Cor Vos is a very sad thing, and my colleague Joe Lindsey’s recent piece on Vos’ passing – and the legacy he left behind – does a great job of explaining why. As a key documentarian of the sport for 50 years, Vos helped ground the cycling of today in the context of cycling back then.
Joe Lindsey
If there was a major moment in the sport over the last half century there's a good chance that Cor's lens captured it – and its his iconic racing images that are what he’ll be most fondly remembered for. But when I think of Cor Vos, I think of something else. Through his own photos and those of photographers working for his agency, Vos gave us more than just the sporting action. He documented a near-endless back catalogue of weird and wonderful cycling moments off the bike, too.
Iain Treloar
Want a shot of a French cyclist in the 1980s playing a bugle? Done. Want to see some vintage Tour de France caravan folk? Likewise. Want to know whether Omega Pharma Lotto had the lovably shit Skoda Roomster in their fleet of team vehicles in 2011? Cor Vos was your man.
Over the years, I’ve often found myself drawn to the Cor Vos archives, stitching together galleries around loose themes: Miguel Indurain in the rain, old school track positions, very modern Vuelta sofas. I never met the man, but I loved digging through the gold mine that was his photo archive looking for inspiration. Vos and his photographers formed the scaffolding around which many articles have been built, so it feels right to send him off with another niche compilation of photos.
Here goes.
Today’s journey through the archive brings us to the island of Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela. Never heard of it? Not to worry: it’s a Caribbean country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a remnant of Dutch colonialism that still sees The Hague take the reins on foreign policy and defence. For our purposes, it was also the home of a season-ending bike race called Amstel Curaçao, held from 2002-2014. Yes, Amstel like 'Amstel Gold Race'; the bad Dutch lager.
This race was never very prestigious, or (at just 80 kilometres in length) very hard. But as an all-expenses-paid, sunny segue out of the cycling season and into holiday mode? It seemed just what the weary WorldTour pros wanted – and sure sounds like a more appealing option than the Tour of Guangxi today. Over its 13 years, a who’s who of riders of the era took out the honours – both Schleck brothers, Marcel Kittel, Alberto Contador, Tom Boonen, and Oscar Freire, to name just a few – while the winners of the two editions of the women’s race were Marianne Vos and Ellen van Dijk.
Each November, Vos or his photographers – there's a mix here, some from Cor but many not – would take the 10-hour (domestic!) flight to the island to document the race. I say ‘the race,' but what really has my attention in photos from Amstel Curaçao is pretty much everything besides the race. Instead, we have this bizarre glimpse into a peloton mostly failing to straddle the divide between Serious Sport and Holiday Mode, frame after frame of riders pushing each other into pools and swimming with dolphins.
None of these are legacy-building photos from Cor Vos and Co., but they do distill what I always enjoyed about his work: a glimpse into some dustier corners of the cycling world, and the people that passed through it.
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