Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) celebrates his win(Image credit: Getty Images)
Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) won stage 2 of Paris-Nice.(Image credit: Getty Images)
Dylan Groenewegen waves to the crowd(Image credit: Getty Images)
Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) riding in the yellow jersey(Image credit: Getty Images)
Wout van Aert on the attack at Strade Bianche(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jumbo-Visma sprinter Dylan Groenewegen will ride his first Milan-San Remo in Italy on Saturday, having been added to the Dutch WorldTour team's seven-rider squad as a replacement for injured teammate Timo Roosen.
Groenewegen was set to ride the following week's Volta a Catalunya, but has been drafted in to replace Roosen, who injured his knee in a crash at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne at the start of March and won't be ready for this weekend's race.
Groenewegen has already had a strong start to his season, taking stages at both the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and the Volta ao Algarve in February. He then went on to last week's Paris-Nice, where he sprinted to wins on the first two stages, holding the race lead until the end of stage 3.
The 25-year-old will now start in Milan on Saturday with a view to potentially targeting La Classicissima next season.
"That's why I'm participating," Groenewegen said of gaining experience at the 291-kilometre-long one-day Classic.
"I will probably fall short of being in contention for the win, but with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España on my programme for this year, I hope to gain that little extra power and endurance to be able to be in the mix next year," he said on the team's website, playing down his chances of starting this year's race as a contender.
His absence from the Volta a Catalunya means that Jumbo-Visma will now concentrate solely on Steven Kruijswijk's GC hopes there, while Groenewegen's change of programme means that he'll now also ride the one-day Driedaagse Brugge-De Panne on March 27.
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Also starting his first Milan-San Remo, in only his third race for Jumbo-Visma, is three-time cyclo-cross world champion Wout van Aert, who finished 13th at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and third at the recent Strade Bianche.
Jumbo-Visma for the 2019 Milan-San Remo: Dylan Groenewegen, Amund Jansen, Neilson Powless, Mike Teunissen, Wout van Aert, Jos van Emden, Danny van Poppel
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