Victory on stage 1 at the Eneco Tour was Dylan Groenewegen's tenth of the season and further confirmation the Dutch national champion is one the best signings LottoNL-Jumbo has made in recent seasons. The was was Groenewegen's first at WorldTour level and also sees the 23-year-old wear the first leader's jersey of the race.
"This is a milestone for Dylan and the team," sports director Merijn Zeeman said after the team won its 18th race of the season. "This our first WorldTour win with this sprint train. The long straight road and tailwind made for an unpredictable finish. You don't want to go too early, but you still have to go. Today, the sprint trains could not organise and tangled constantly.
"At one point, I thought Groenewegen sat in a hopeless position, but he battled his way through. He arrived to speed at the right time and then was hard to beat," said Zeeman of the win ahead of Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff). "Dylan Groenewegen made another step towards being a top level sprinter. He is became stronger this year and is now in top form."
ADVERTISEMENT
While the likes of German duo Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep), and fellow fast men Arnaud Démare (FDJ) and Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange) were expected to triumph in Bolsward, Groenewegen proved to be the fastest and staked a claim for outsider status to win the rainbow jersey at next month's Worlds in Doha.
"I stayed on the wheel of Robert Wagner, and he kept me out of the wind perfectly," said Groenewegen who also leads the points classification. "We continued on the right with the Orica train coming up. I jumped on the wheel of Caleb Ewan, but he was trapped. Nizzolo jumped, and I knew I had to take his wheel and I'd have a clear sprint.
"We worked hard and came to the Eneco Tour to win a stage. It is nice that we immediately succeeded on the first day. We have worked on this sprint train only for seven months, but now we win at the highest level against the strongest sprinters. That makes this win special. "
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2cjOgmg
No comments:
Post a Comment