"He showed today that he can win Gent-Wevelgem one day" - Laurens ten Dam full of praise for Olav Kooij

Whilst Christophe Laporte and Woit van Aert understandably took all the plaudits following Gent Wevelgem, Laurens ten Dam singled out a different Jumbo-Visma rider for praise, Olav Kooij.

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"That boy is 21 years old and is therefore also coming for the classics. He showed today that he can win Gent-Wevelgem one day," ten Dam told the Live Slow Ride Fast podcast. "But he will soon also be gone from Jumbo-Visma. He's not going to stay if he's smart," agrees Thomas Dekker.

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"With his qualities you want to win a stage in the Tour de France and I don't think he's even going to ride a Grand Tour this year," Dekker explains. "It will be a very difficult story for him to ride the Tour in the coming years, with all those classification riders."

Regardless of what the future has in store for Kooij, it's fair to say the 21-year-old Dutchman has arrived in the world tour peloton. "I think he won ten to twelve races last year – more than ten in any case – that just has to go to a team where they fully play their cards," Dekker explains. "Today would have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if everything had stayed together, but those are really few opportunities."

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