It's fair to say the Amstel Gold Race didn't go to plan for Jumbo-Visma. Only three riders finished, with Tiesj Benoot best placed in 15th over three minutes down on the eventual winner Tadej Pogacar. Sam Oomen admits things quickly went downhill.
"It looked good for a while, but then it didn't. We had foreseen the scenario where Pogacar attacks and also took into account that he would be outstanding," Oomen reveals in a post-race interview with In de Leiderstrui. “So we had the plan to make the race hard halfway through, so that we would be gone sooner."
For a while the chasing peloton managed to keep the front group that including both Tadej Pogacar and Tom Pidcock to around 30 seconds, Jumbo-Visma were one of many teams that burned through domestiques leaving their leaders then forced to do the work. "With Tosh Van Der Sande it looked very good for a while, but then it went downhill pretty quickly," Oomen laments.
"When we suddenly lost our way, we had to start riding quite early, of course, but then… it was suddenly very slippery," Oomen continues, referencing a big crash that disrupted the peloton and saw the likes of Neilson Powless and Jumbo-Visma's own Attila Valter go down hard. "In a classic like this you pay for every effort. It was true that it also became difficult afterwards because we were behind that crash."
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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