Ex-Visma rider shares funny anecdote from his Giro stage victory "That night Wout van Aert texted me to tell me he's proud of how I handled it"

The Giro d'Italia 2022 was the reference race of Koen Bouwman's career. After having finished 12th in the previous year's classification, Bouwman confirmed his qualities by winning two stages and taking the mountains jersey.

At the time, the Dutchman was riding for Jumbo-Visma (now Visma - Lease a Bike). Recently, he talked about the moment when he raised his arms on day 19, beating Mauro Schmid, with whom he will now share a team with Jayco-AlUla.

On the De Rode Lantaarn podcast, Bouwman shares an interesting anecdote about that second win. "On the second stage I won, I launched the sprint too late. I thought: wait, wait, wait. I took that corner too tight, yeah. That night Wout van Aert texted me: 'I'm proud of you, that was a great corner, man. That's how a cyclocross rider would do it.'"

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Who was not so happy was Mauro Schmid, the Swiss who finished second that day. "Next year he'll be my teammate," the Dutch rider commented with a chuckle. "That night I sent him a message. I asked for his number and wrote him that I wasn't going to apologize, but that I was sorry that the turn was right in the middle of the sprint. I told him I would have preferred a straight line sprint. I ended the message by telling him that his big win would be coming."

That night, Pascal Eenkhoorn stopped by to visit Bouwman, who was on the massage table. "He asked me, 'Have you talked to your friend yet?' I had just sent the message and showed it to him. Then Pascal said, 'Idiot, he won a stage in the Giro d'Italia last year.' I had no idea, haha. I even had to apologize for not knowing."

Schmid did not respond to Bouwman's message. "No, he didn't respond to me. The next day I went to talk to him, but he told me he didn't want to talk to me anymore. Since then we haven't spoken. I'm curious to see what will happen on Sunday (when Jayco-AlUla starts training camp). We're adults, so surely everything will work out."

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