Bart Brentjens: 1995 UCI Mountain Bike World Champion, gold medal winner at the first ever Olympic mountain bike event in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 and bronze medal winner at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. I don’t know how you say “bad ass” in Dutch (slecht aars?), but I am sure he has been called it more than a few times.
The forty-five years young Brentjens is still going strong, racing marathons (Salzkammergut Trophy) and stage races (Brasil Ride, Cape Epic and Crocodile Trophy).
On top of maintaining a busy race schedule he also does some color commentating (some 2013 Red Bull TV XCO coverage) race promotion (The Bart Brentjens Challenge) and is the manager of the BETCH.nl Superior Brentjens MTB Racing Team. Did I mention that he is also a knight? Yep, “Bartman” was knighted by the king of Holland (I had no idea Holland had a king) after wining the gold medal in ’96. I’m pretty sure he is the only knighted mountain bike racer in the world (yeah, Bradley Wiggins was knighted by the Queen, but that doesn’t count, he races on the road). But then again, I didn’t know Holland had a king, so don’t trust me.
With the history Bart Brentjens has and his love of marathon and stage racing, I had always hoped to interview him for XXC. Sadly, that never happened… but hey, we can still watch some “Bartman” history via these YouTube videos! Check ’em out!
The 1995 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Kirchzarten, Germany.
The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (Conyers), Georgia, USA
Follow Bart Brentjens on Twitter @BartmnBrentjens.
Top photo: Gert Lammer, maastricht.gezien.nl
Bottom photo: Erwin Haiden, nyx.at, Salzkammergut Trophy Flickr
1995 World Cup Video: chickasmith, YouTube
1996 Olympic Video: cChunkstardeluxe, YouTube