Groenewegen continues Tour de France build-up with a birthday present ZLM win

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Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) continued his highly impressive build-up to the Tour de France with his second win in as many days at the ZLM Tour. The Dutchman won stage 1 and then backed that up with a second victory 24 hours later ahead of Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and his own leadout man Mike Teunissen. The victory came on Groenewegen’s 26th birthday.

Groenewegen, who won two stages at last year’s Tour de France, has now won nine races this year and will head to the Tour de France in two weeks’ time full of confidence.

Jumbo-Visma controlled the peloton for much of the 168.1km stage, reeling in a four-man break before setting up Groenewegen for the victory.

“Winning is always nice. After my crash yesterday, I was not feeling great. The team did a perfect job and brought me in a good position for the sprint. They had the stage perfectly under control. The lead-out was perfect and that gives me confidence for the Tour. The goal is to fine-tune the lead-out and this is the ideal race for that,” Groenewegen said.

Third place was enough to put Teunissen into the race lead at the five-day race. Jumbo Visma have won all three stages so far, including the opening time trial through Jos van Emden, but their domination is not as easy as it looks, according to Teunissen.

“People might say that this race is not of WorldTour level, but that is what makes it so difficult. The whole peloton wants to surprise you,” Teunissen said. “Therefore, you have to make sure that you don’t get boxed in. We constantly stayed together as a team. I started the sprint and I saw that there was a big gap, so I continued the sprint myself. Of course, I would like to win the ZLM Tour, but the most important thing is that someone of the team wins.”

Jumbo-Visma currently sit first, second and third overall and lead the points and team classification.