"We want to support Fabio through a strong sprint train" - Fabio Jakobsen has dsm-firmenich PostNL's full trust for Tour de France

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL realize chasing a GC dream could prove counter-productive at the upcoming Tour de France. Instead, the Dutch World Tour formation wants to use all the weapons in their deposit to chase stage success. The biggest caliber in their arsenal should be the sprinter Fabio Jakobsen. The team is convinced his failed Giro d'Italia is a matter of the past and that we'll see the Dutchman fight for victories in France again.

"Fabio is indeed training well again," sports director Matt Winston also agrees in a chat with In de Leiderstrui. "After his failure at the Giro d'Italia, he was able to quickly shift focus towards the Tour. Also to get everything back on track as quickly as possible. As a staff we naturally spend a lot of time on this, as it is one of the most important cards within our team. We want to support Fabio as a team and in that sense express our confidence in him through a strong lead-out train."

The team can't name yet who'll be in charge of Jakobsen's sprints. "The train will come anyway, although the exact names are not yet entirely certain. In principle we have thirteen boys on the longlist, so five more will have to be eliminated. So at the same time we must also ensure that the possible reserves are also prepared in tip-top condition. That is also important, because you never know what can and will happen in the meantime. An accident or fall, for example, could easily happen."

"In my opinion, Fabio is completely focused on the Tour," concluded Winston. "I think he is capable of great things there. That's what he's working towards. In the coming weeks we will see exactly how far he is and what his form is, but at the time of speaking he is certainly back on the right track. We are confident that he will achieve those familiar top results again. In the Giro we of course also looked extensively at his data and made some decisions based on that. Now that Fabio has fully recovered from the crash, we can fully focus on the Tour with those small tweaks. We can already get a first glimpse of it in the Baloise Belgium Tour."