Niki Terpstra (open in new tab) admitted that he is unlikely to win the Tour de Flanders again, but the veteran Dutchman believes he can help his new teammate Peter Sagan of TotalEnergies (open in new tab) on the cobbles next spring

Terp.

Terpstra, who just confirmed this week that he has signed a new contract with TotalEnergies, said in an interview on the In het Wiel podcast (opens in new tab) that he never worried that his career might end this winter.

"No, of course I was nervous at times. But every time the director of Total told me, 'It's going to be okay. So I had confidence that it would work out," said Terpstra, who last season was still suffering from the aftereffects of an intense training crash in June 2020.

"That crash had a big impact," he admitted.

"From the outside it might look like it was just a fall. It wasn't. I've had bad crashes before, but nothing compared to that one. I was able to get back on the bike quickly under the circumstances, but not immediately back to my level."

Indeed, Terpstra confessed that he is unlikely to regain the conditions that saw him win the 2018 Tour de Flanders alone. The Dutch rider also won the E3 Harelbeke that spring and parted company with Quick Step at the end of the season, signing with Jean-Rene Bernodeau's team, then known as Direct Energie.

Terpstra suffered a major crash in his first Tour of Flanders with the team in 2019 and was forced to withdraw from Paris-Roubaix. His best results with the team came in his debut season, when he finished third in the Coupe Brussel-Coone and second in the Paris-Tour.

Now 37, Terpstra is aware that he is in the final stages of his career and expressed hope that he can avoid crashes and injuries in the new season.

"As I've gotten older, it's gotten harder to be at the top level," Terpstra said. I'm not going to be good enough to win the Tour of Flanders anymore. But as long as I keep racing and training, I think I can be an above-average rider. If you train a lot and race a lot, you will be rewarded.

During his time with Quick Step, Terpstra occasionally clashed with Sagan. Perhaps most notably during the 2017 Ghent-Wevelgem finale when the two marked each other hard; in August, Sagan said he hoped Terpstra would remain at Total Energies in 2022 and that the Dutchman was ready to work for the three-time world champion.

"In the last few years I was running the classics with ambition, mainly for myself," he said. 'I've flipped a switch and adjusted my goals. Maybe I won't get the same results as in the past, but I can enjoy racing in a different way. I've already done that the last few years, but next year I'm going to be even more focused."