"We know how good Thymen is and will be" - INEOS continue to back Arensman despite stage 1 disaster

Thymen Arensman suffered the biggest loss out of all the GC contenders in the opening day of the Giro d'Italia. This led to his own father writing a post on Twitter criticizing the Dutchman's coach, blaming the team for the INEOS rider not being in his best form. However from within the team, there are words of confidence despite the blow to his GC aspirations.

"In a grand tour, you face ups and downs, but there's still a long way to go to Rome," team DS Oliver Cookson told In de Leiderstrui. "We are in a process with him and have a lot of confidence in Thymen. We know how strong he is in the last week and we know that this is a race where everything can still be turned around later on. We need to stay calm, he had to manage his effort, and then we know how good Thymen is and will be. He has a huge engine and we will definitely see that in action in this Giro."

As UAE paced up the Colle della Maddalena, Arensman was dropped and wouldn't come back afterwards. Jhonatan Narváez, Geraint Thomas and Filippo Ganna stayed in the peloton and each battled for their own result; whilst the remaining teammates had been dropped earlier. INEOS, who entered the race with a strong team and was hoping it could use Arensman or even Tobias Foss to put pressure on rivals teams, will have a lot more difficulties using that option at some point.

"I saw that he was at the back of the group and said over the radio that I saw him falling back," teammate Magnus Sheffield added. "However, Thymen is a fighter, he had to continue towards the finish line at his own pace." The team won the stage with a surprise from Narváez who is also the pink jersey now, but there certainly was not a good mood from Arensman who did not talk to the media following the stage.