"I really wanted to go home" - Thymen Arensman honest about 'demons in his head' after another disaster start to Giro d'Italia in 2025

Thymen Arensman has traditionally been a bit of a slow starter in Grand Tours over the course of his career. That sadly proved true once again on the opening stage of the 2025 Giro d'Italia, with the INEOS Grenadiers' general classification hopeful losing considerably time on stage 1.

Finishing the day already more than a minute and a half down on the Maglia Rosa, Arensman was somewhat understandably down in the dumps afterwards, as he explained to Eurosport after finishing his stage 2 individual time trial.

"Yeah, I'm, just happy the day of yesterday is done. It's like — I made it so heavy for myself," begins the Dutchman with a sigh. "And I don't want to say like demons in your head or whatever, but... if you make it so heavy for yourself — like I really wanted to perform this time and I did everything I could for the first day— but you are so nervous and you're fighting yourself, then it's more like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know? Like, if you keep on thinking about it and you're so nervous, then yeah, then it just happens."

So down was Arensman, that the Dutchman even considered abandoning the race completely. "It's just the back mind that it's playing up. So I'm just happy that the day of yesterday is done. I really wanted to go home," he admits. "I was so disappointed yesterday. But it's just a learning process for myself, and I'm getting better every time."

"Like all the races I did this year — I made so many good steps, um, fighting myself. But it's like every learning process: it's not one straight line up. It's with ups and downs," he concludes more positively. "Just happy the day of yesterday is done. And we'll only get better from now on. We’ll see how I did in this TT. But I think it was already a lot better. And I just enjoyed myself more. So then it's also nicer to just race, you know."