Taco van der Hoorn's breakaway attempt stopped by protesters: "I don't know if we would have made it otherwise"

A year ago, we were all worried whether the fan-favourite Taco van der Hoorn would ever cruise the roads as a professional cyclist again. But with today's strong breakaway ride at the Giro d'Italia, have gave us the best possible answer.

With three kilometers to go, those protesters came onto the road," Van der Hoorn told Eurosport. "Suddenly, there was someone in front of me. With a ribbon and who knows what else he had. I came to a complete standstill. I rode straight through them, but I came to a complete standstill, because they completely blocked the road. Then you have to get going again, while you are completely wasted, so to speak. That is difficult."

"It did have an impact," said Van der Hoorn. "I don't know if we would have made it otherwise, I don't think so. But it is a shame that it has to end like this."

On TV it then looked like Paleni had dropped Van der Hoorn, but the Dutchman explains how it really was. "He rode around them, while I was completely stationary. That's why it happened, but apparently it wasn't on TV. He didn't ride away from me. I was just completely blocked, which meant I had to brake hard. That made a difference of about ten seconds."

Despite the setback, Van der Hoorn was smiling proudly in the interview after a good day out in the saddle. Having missed a full year not so long ago, this is a massive satisfaction for the 31-year-old.

"It went well. I tried from the start. I followed Tarling. On the hill after that I didn’t follow, that was just a bit too tough. But the moment they were caught, I thought: this is the moment. But then the two of us came out in front. That wasn’t really the intention. But yes, I thought: we’re going to give it a try anyway."

"Did I have an idea whether we could make it? I didn't hear any time differences from the sidelines and I didn't hear anything in my ear. We just rode flat out and saw what would happen. We were well matched and it was a nice duo time trial. I just said to him: we're just going to ride flat out to the finish."