🇮🇹 #GirodItalia Victory in Napoli! 🤩 “This is a dream come true.” - @KooijOlav From joining Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development in 2020 to winning on the highest stage a few years later. Read all about it in our report! ✍️
"We must also be grateful to Tadej Pogacar for his turn" - Visma DS thanks the Maglia Rosa for indirectly helping Olav Kooij win stage 10
CyclingMonday, 13 May 2024 at 08:43
Visma | Lease a Bike enter the first Giro d'Italia rest day on a high note. Why wouldn't they with Olav Kooij's stage win in the pocket and Cian Uijtdebroeks sitting nicely in fifth overall. But sports director Marc Reef is aware not everything has been going according to the plan, with two riders already out of the race.
"Unbelievable, it is a real team achievement,¨" says Reef. "We knew it would be a tough day, because of the course but also because of the teams that we wanted to conquer. It was also an ideal terrain to see many attacks in the final, which happened. We knew we had to ride conservatively today because we don't have a full team anymore and not everyone is at 100 percent."
"It was up to other teams to control it. We stayed calm and kept Olav in a good position. He expressed some doubts during the stage, but the entire group continued to express confidence in him. The teammates did a good job, but we must also be grateful to Tadej Pogacar for his turn. It's a shame for Narvaez, but I'm happy we could win this one. Olav was ultimately very strong."
"I immediately said that we had to stick to our plan, our boys told him that too. We've already tried it twice this week. But Olav himself had already fallen. That takes some time, but you can see that he wins the stage and still gets through. As a team we are very proud of that. He is a boy who comes from our own training team and has made the switch at an early stage. Now he is here as the leader in a Grand Tour, which is nice to see."
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