Wilco Kelderman was perhaps as surprised as everyone else when he learned that his Sunweb teammate Tom Dumoulin would return to the Giro d'Italia in 2018. Kelderman, after all, had himself been mulling over a tilt at the corsa rosa this season. Instead he has postponed his own Grand Tour podium attempt until August and the Vuelta a España.
"For me it was a bit of a surprise too, but I also know the team a bit, and the team doesn't always just look to the biggest race, or think 'he's won the Giro, so now he has to do the Tour,'" Kelderman said in Berlin last week. "They're always thinking out of the box and they think of what's best for the rider, so I was not really surprised. I think it's good for him."
What's good for Dumoulin should, in theory, be good for Kelderman. When Kelderman arrived at Sunweb a year ago, it was assumed that he had been signed primarily as a deluxe domestique for his fellow countryman. He duly lined up in that role at the Giro, though he would be forced out by a crash at the foot of the Blockhaus on stage 9, and he instead finished the season by re-stating his own credentials as a Grand Tour contender after placing a fine 4th at the Vuelta a España.
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In 2018, Kelderman's programme will not be tethered so closely to that of Dumoulin. Rather than serve as Dumoulin's wingman at the Giro, he will instead ride the Tour and the Vuelta, though he insisted that he will target the general classification only in the Spanish race – a hint, perhaps, that Dumoulin may yet attempt a Giro-Tour double.
"I'll do the Vuelta as the GC leader and the Tour in more like a free role. I'll go for stage wins, maybe help Michael [Matthews] in the flat stages, and ride it more as the build-up for the Vuelta," said Kelderman, who added that his ambitions in July will not change even if Dumoulin is absent.
"It doesn't make any difference. The bigger goal is the Vuelta so the Tour is ahead of it and also very close so you have to make a choice about what you want to do. The Vuelta is a bigger goal for me. The Tour is before that so I'll be in a free role there."
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