Mathieu van der Poel and Danny van Poppel could leadout victory to the Netherlands at European Championships - " I am super motivated to work with Olav. He is my dream sprinter to work with"

The Netherlands start the European Championships today as big contenders for victory. Mathieu van der Poel will be looking to do damage on the cobbled and hilly section of the race but the team has Olav Kooij in a good position to sprint for a top result and he may have luxury leadout men backing him up.

“That is also difficult to say. It started off well in a good spring with nice victories, then the Giro quickly followed. I also started the second half well in Poland," Kooij said in words to Wielerflits. "I also rate the upcoming European Championships quite highly. It is a super nice jersey to wear in a race that has grown over the years. You always have nice winners here. This would look very nice on my provisional list of honours.”

Kooij has taken another step this year, making his Grand Tour debut at the Giro d'Italia and taking a stage win. Furthermore he's done the same at the UAE Tour, Paris-Nice, Tour de Pologne and most recently the Bemer Cyclassics. In the latter two, he managed to win in the presence of Jonathan Milan and Jasper Philipsen who are rated the other two big favourites for the win today in Hasselt.

"It is also always good to have Mathieu in the selection. It is to our advantage to be well represented with him in the difficult zones," Kooij argues. "It is always good to have someone in reserve who can race... I do not think that we will go all out for the sprint with the Dutch team. We have to use our strength in breadth in multiple scenarios. Both for the sprint and the attack. The race will show which card we have to play.”

Van der Poel could be in the leadout if the aggressive strategy does not work, and so will leadout expert Danny van Poppel, who also shared his thoughts ahead of the race: “I don’t know yet how that will work. I think Olav has to decide for himself what he wants."

"We have to listen to that, but I can tell you that I am super motivated to work with Olav. He is my dream sprinter to work with. I would really like to race with him in the future. Now there is an opportunity. Of course it is only one race, so we have to wait and see how it goes... We may have multiple lead-out options, Mathieu van der Poel can certainly handle that role," he concluded.