Olav Kooij set for Grand Tour debut at 2024 Giro d'Italia: "I'm really looking forward to that"
CyclingFriday, 22 December 2023 at 10:00
Olav Kooij will make his debut in a Grand Tour in 2024, as expected. The sprinter from Visma | Lease a Bike will do so at the upcoming Giro d'Italia, alongside Wout van Aert and new GC leader Cian Uijtdebroeks.
Kooij is undergoing a stormy development and confirmed this with no fewer than thirteen victories in 2023. Last season he also signed a contract that will keep him with the Dutch team until the end of 2025.
Visma | Lease a Bike will mainly focus on stage victories in the Giro d'Italia. "I'm really looking forward to that," Kooij said during the team presentation. "I always keep setting goals and try to achieve them. I also go to the Giro with that feeling. I started here in the training team and thanks to good results I continue to make progress. Hopefully I can continue that."
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"We have a lot of goals in the Grand Tours. In all races we start to win. Last year we won many sprints and we can look back on that with pride," said Kooij, who will also ride the UAE Tour and Paris-Nice in the spring.
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- It will be just a waste of time to finish out of the podium. Giro Vuelta makes a better choiceabstractengineer19-11-2024
- I would agree, top 3 with Remco improving and snapping at his heels. I just wish he wouldn't keep crashing in the TDF.Pedalmasher19-11-2024
- Backstedt and Schreiber are not juniors they are under 23. There were I think about 7 or 8 juniors in this race. Under the current rules a race that has juniors in can't go over 45 minutes. The winning time was 43.53 so the timing was correct. The organisers are in the wrong because they should be putting on a juniors race and then we wouldn't be in this situation as the timings for the elite race would be 50 minutes, not 45.NorrisHippocampe19-11-2024
- It's everywhere. Just like it was before. But we can just pretend it isn't. Just like we did before.Sweep19-11-2024
- Not a top 4 GT rider? He's got more GT wins (just not at the Tour) than any viable active rider (Froome not included). Were it not for his team messing it up for him, he'd have won the Vuelta even more often. He's a bizarrely accident prone, deeply conservative rider, but it delivers. He's also one of the best 1-week GC riders in the peloton. The man may not be Pogacar or Vingegaard (who is?), but he is definitely in the top 3 of the field, right now.RidesHills19-11-2024
- Nobody is saying that he is tin he Top 4 GT riders but nobdy is also saying he is capable of winning the TDF in the presence of Pog and Jonas. He was already fairly blown away before his crash and if we assume that Bora hired him to win the TDF, then it would not be considered a success. That he won the Vuelta only make it not a total fail.abstractengineer19-11-2024
- "The viewing and visitor figures are both better than when they were riding" - what a BS. Please compare (and only then) visitor figures during current season vs when WvA and MvdP are back in December (hopefully!) otherwise you are comparing oranges to apples.averagecyclist19-11-2024
- I counted 16 riders under 24 out of 43 that started. Once was only 16 ! Two of the top riders are Zoe and Schreiber and both under 23 yet that have done 50 min races in the past with the elites so I think it's just bad clock management. Let them race 50 freakin' minutes! One more lap could have made a big dffierence most times in the podium and winner.frieders319-11-2024
- He needs to finish out his contract and then go hit MTB and Cross/Gravel really hard, that's where his heart is.awp18-11-2024
- Pidcock is starting to sound like Froome now.Sweep18-11-2024