Pieter Daniel Moeskops (13 November 1893 – 16 November 1964) was a Dutch cyclist, who won the UCI Track Cycling World Championships - Men's Sprint in 1921-1924 and 1926.Piet Moeskops
cyclingarchives.com Born in

Loosduinen Loosduinen () is a former village in the Netherlands that was a municipality unto itself until 1923, when it was annexed by The Hague and subsequently became a district of the city. Within the district there is also a neighbourhood (Dutch:wijk) c ...

, as a boy he rode a delivery bike for his father's business. By 1914 he became the first Netherlands sprint champion, but the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

meant that no international matches were organised. Only after the war could Moeskops turn professional. In 1921 he won his first UCI World Title, beating the reigning world champion from Australia, Bob Spears. He retained the world title again for the next three years, and won it again in 1926. In 1925, in Amsterdam, he was beaten in the semi-finals. In 1929 and 1930 he reached the finals but was defeated by the Frenchman Lucien Michard. He was eight times Dutch professional champion, the last time in 1932. Moeskops was a good tactician, studying opponents carefully so that he could predict where someone would attack him.''In the midst of the champions'' (1942), by Joris van den Bergh's For a cyclist he was very tall and was known as "Big Pete". In 1930 Moeskops underwent major surgery which accelerated the end of his cycling career. His last major victory was in the Grand Prix of Alis (France) in 1933. In retirement he became the owner of a café. He was a national hero, and in 1963 he appeared on the television programme ''Voor de vuist weg'' with Willem Duys. A year later he died in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

, at 71 years of age. Moeskops is buried at the 'Old Oak' cemetery in the Den Haag Dunes. The municipalities of

Krugersdorp Krugersdorp (Afrikaans for ''Kruger's Town'') is a mining city in the West Rand, Gauteng Province, South Africa founded in 1887 by Marthinus Pretorius. Following the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, a need arose for a major town in the west ...

and

Nijmegen Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...

, and the Loosduinen district of The Hague, have streets named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moeskops, Piet 1893 births 1964 deaths Dutch male cyclists Cyclists from The Hague UCI Track Cycling World Champions (men) Dutch track cyclists 19th-century Dutch people 20th-century Dutch people