Thymen Arensman confident for the Giro despite mixed results in the Alps: “On the longer climb, I felt very good”

Thymen Arensman, the 25-year-old Dutch climber from Deil, has experienced a turbulent Tour of the Alps in 2025, a key preparation race for his upcoming Giro d’Italia campaign starting May 9. Leading INEOS Grenadiers in the five-stage race through Italy and Austria, Arensman has shown flashes of brilliance but also inconsistency, leaving him out of podium contention yet still close to the race’s favourites.

As he fine-tunes his form for the Giro (where he finished sixth in both 2023 and 2024) his performance at the Tour of the Alps offers both encouragement and questions about his potential to challenge for a podium in Italy.

Arensman’s Tour of the Alps has been a reminder of the physical and mental demands of transitioning from altitude training to competitive racing. Speaking to Wielerflits after Wednesday’s stage, won by early escapee Marco Frigo, Arensman reflected on his uneven performances.

“This is good preparation for the Giro,” he said, acknowledging the race’s value despite his fluctuating form. “It’s a bit inconsistent, which is to be expected after altitude. On the first day, I felt really good, but in the second stage, I really had no legs. The power I rode was out of whack, but I suffered more than on the first day. That’s a ‘standard bad day’ after the altitude training, but now it felt a bit better.”

“We know that punch is not really my strongest point, but on the longer climb, I felt very good,” he noted. “Here, they are all a bit punchy finishes, so in preparation, that is certainly good.” His ability to perform well on longer climbs during the race, despite struggling with the race’s sharper gradients, bodes well for the Giro, which features more sustained mountain stages, including brutal ascents in the Dolomites and Apennines. Maybe this will finally be his year to reach the podium.

Arensman’s 2025 season has already shown his potential. His third-place finish at Paris-Nice in March, behind winner Matteo Jorgenson, marked a career-best result in a World Tour stage race and signalled his growing prowess as a general classification contender. His back-to-back sixth-place finishes at the Giro demonstrate consistency, but at 25, he’s at an age where a breakthrough podium could be within reach. However, his candid assessment of his current form, “I feel reasonable, but not in top form,” suggests he’s not yet peaking, a deliberate choice given the Giro’s start in Albania is over two weeks away.

Analysing Arensman’s Tour of the Alps performance reveals both challenges and opportunities for him. His “standard bad day” on stage two, likely a result of the physiological lag from altitude training, is of course a common hurdle for riders preparing for Grand Tours. Hopefully for him, he can use this race simply to fine tune his form for his main target next month.

Can Arensman threaten the Giro podium? Maybe, and his Paris-Nice result suggests he can compete with top GC riders, but the Giro’s three-week duration and deeper field, including the likes of Primoz Roglic and Juan Ayuso, will test his endurance to the very limit. For Arensman, a podium at the Giro feels overdue. He has never raced the Tour de France, and the Italian grand tour has always been the race he has performed best in.

Arensman, who won a stage of the Vuelta in 2022, said before the start of the Tour of the Alps that, “After an altitude training camp, you never know how it will go. It could go well, but it could also go less well. I don’t really know. It’s always a bit of a lottery after altitude, so it’s no different now. Ask me again after the stage.”

So, no need to panic. The Dutchman should be right where he needs to be.