'It's been an incredibly hard few months' – Dutch sprinter returns to racing following the death of his father and a traumatic training assault

Sunday's Rund um Köln may not be a premier race on the yearly calendar, but the German one-dayer holds a special significance for Tudor Pro Cycling sprinter Arvid De Kleijn, who will pin on a number for the first time since last October.

The Dutch rider has endured an "incredibly hard few months" since last racing at the Tour de Langkawi, where he sped to two stage victories.

In the interim, he has endured a series of traumas, including losing his father to cancer and being assaulted by a group of teenagers who had hurled abuse at him.

"It's been an incredibly hard few months," De Kleijn said in a Tudor press release.

"My dad had been battling cancer, and toward the end, things became very difficult for him and for all of us as a family. I needed to be there. I needed to stay close."

His father died in February, De Kleijn told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

"Although things hadn't been looking good for a long time, he managed to stay alive. At one point, I was even considering perhaps riding the Giro this year and what to do if he were to pass away during that race.

"But in the end, things happened very quickly in February. You don't want that final period to drag on, because then the process of suffering is long and intense. The way it turned out, it has brought peace to everyone in the family, and we can all look back on a beautiful farewell."

There has been light among the darkness, with De Kleijn and his wife Céline welcoming their first child, Fye, in January, even if her birth didn't go 100% smoothly.

"Fye was born on January 6. It was wonderful, but it all went a lot more difficult than we'd hoped," De Kleijn said.

"It wasn't an easy birth, and Céline couldn't get out of bed for a long time. It was mainly down to me, although I was actually scheduled to go on a training camp with the team. The team said they didn't think that was right, given the situation and that it's our first child.

"In the end, I couldn't have gone away, because I had to look after both girls for the first ten days. I hardly got any training in."

De Kleijn did get back to training ahead of what will be his fourth season at Tudor, with a start at April's sprinters' classic, Scheldeprijs, as a target.

However, that season debut never happened. In the week before the race, he was out training when he passed "a group of 10 lads, around 15, 16, 17 years old", he said. The group hurled abuse at him, including the highly offensive Dutch profanity 'kanker'.

Although the use of the insult seems to be an unfortunate coincidence rather than a targeted gesture [kanker translates as cancer in English – Ed.] at De Kleijn, it understandably struck a nerve.

"They hurled abuse at me, using the name of the disease my father died from. I turned round and tried to talk to them. Why did they have to use that word to insult me, and why were they acting so rowdy in the first place?" he said.

"When I asked them to stop, because my father had died of that disease, things went from bad to worse.

"They'd probably been drinking, and perhaps had taken something else as well. There was absolutely no point in trying to talk to them, and when I decided to cycle away, they started attacking me.

"One of them at the back right was on a fatbike and lashed out at me in one go, knocking me out. It turned out my nose was broken. It's particularly sad that you increasingly see this generation no longer having any respect for their fellow human beings."

De Kleijn's broken nose meant that Scheldeprijs was off the table, while the impact of the assault also left him shaken and shocked beyond the physical impact.

Fortunately, bystanders were on hand to help De Kleijn, while nine of the group who assaulted him were arrested.

"Unfortunately, the person who struck me left quickly and hasn't been found yet. Sadly, the trial will take a while, but I'm glad they won't get away with it," De Kleijn said.

The 32-year-old, a former Paris-Nice stage winner, is now hoping to put the tribulations of recent months behind him as he returns to racing. After Köln comes the 4 Jours de Dunkerque before a series of semi-Classics in Belgium and the Copenhagen Sprint in June.

A shoulder injury suffered at last year's UAE Tour – loose bone fragments which left him unable to raise his right arm – is also behind him, the pain from a corrective surgery which saw a hook inserted into his shoulder joint finally gone.

"I missed racing so much, the adrenaline of the sprint, the atmosphere within the team, all of it," he said in the Tudor press release.

"Recently, I've trained really well, and I finally feel ready again. I believe I can be competitive. I want to win again, for myself, for the team, and for everyone who stood by me during this period."