Thymen Arensman wishes Dumoulin would have stuck around longer - "I would have loved to learn from Tom"

Netherlands' new big GC hope Thymen Arensman is disappointed he won't be able to learn from 2017 Giro d'Italia winner and fellow Dutchman, Tom Dumoulin after his retirement. "Unfortunately, Tom stops at just the wrong time for me."

Joining the INEOS Grenadiers in 2023, Arensman spoke to Ride Magazine about how he would gladly accept any help and advice from Dumoulin. "I don't know him. But judging him from a distance, I think he could have helped me so much. Not so much as a rider, but especially as a person.” Arensman said. “I could have very nice discussions with Tom and perhaps not so much about cycling. Who knows if that will ever happen."

After recently revealing that one of the reasons he chose to join INEOS was that they saw a more gradual progression to being a GC rider for them. Expanding on this, Arensman would continue “The main thing I would like to hear from him is how he gradually rose to the top. Hopefully that's in it for me too. If I could have anything from Dumoulin's palmares, that would already be very cool. How he handled the peripheral issues that come with it, Tom has already experienced it all. He has the knowledge of today.”