After local star and Giro d’Italia leader Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) was cheered and applauded by massive roadside crowds from almost start to finish of stage 2 in the Netherlands on Saturday, he was asked if there had been one moment, amongst the 190 kilometres of celebrations and quarter of a million fans on the roadsides, which had stuck in his memory.
“Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “There was one sign somewhere along the way which said ‘Tom, will you marry me?’ That will stay with me, although the answer is ‘no’.”
For Dumoulin in general, unexpected marriage proposals apart - “‘if anybody’s going to ask that question, it should be me to my girlfriend, so she won’t be the one with the sign” he pointed out with another smile - stage 2 was, as he repeated countless times after the race was over, “a very special day.” The massive crowds, excellent weather and a relatively straightforward, incident-free, ride all made what was already going to be an exceptional day, even that much better.
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As the Giant-Alpecin rider pointed out, with three riders up the road, all the bonus seconds from the intermediate sprints were taken before the main peloton - with the top threat to his lead, Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) - reached them. As a result with Kittel unable to gain enough bonus seconds even by winning, as the German duly did, Dumoulin knew that barring absolute disaster, his lead was safe.
“That made a fairly easy day, even more enjoyable, I could enjoy the crowds, all the people shouting my name. It was a party out there. To me it’s very special, because ever since last winter this has been a goal but in my head it wasn’t real and now it is, which is strange.
“There were many people wanting a picture, shouting my name, I will try to enjoy it for as long as it lasts now. I don’t like saying things like ‘this was the best day of my life’, but it was certainly really, really cool.
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