Dacathlon's Olav Kooij wins disorganized sprint into Pau.
A day for the fast-men as Kooij takes his first Tour stage victory.
Sprints are fast and furious and sometimes wildly disorganized. Chaos often levels the playing field.
Today on the Tour stage from Lannemezan to Pau, we witnessed what happens when no one team is able to assert dominance and control. It was a sprint train-free event.
The last ten kilometers were a grab-bag of teams all coming to the front early: Uno-X Mobility and the perennially under-achieving French squad Cofidis took the lead. Netcompany INEOS, Tudor, and Groupama-FDJ United all made a guest appearances. Everybody was dreaming big and praying hard.
Meanwhile, the well-drilled squads like Alpecin-Premier Tech had unforeseen issues — like a crash just outside five kilometers that held up some of their riders. Their star sprinter Jasper Philipsen couldn’t have been happy about that.
Instead, this was a day for freelancers, underdogs and dice-rollers. For example, two riders from Astana took their chances with aggressive moves. If you had great legs, you had to put them to work.
In the end, victory went to the sprinter with patience, calm and good fortune. Olav Kooij, in his first Tour de France, stayed in good position, found a promising wheel and broke for daylight.
“The first sprint of the Tour, everyone is still really eager,” said Kooij. “I just managed to find my way a bit on my own in the end, but I found the right wheel. When I saw the line I just went as hard as I could.” Which is generally what sprinters do — It’s kind of a fast-twitch behavior.
He out-accelerated Max Kanter (XDS Astana Team) and Tim Merlier(Soudal Quickstep) for the podium positions. Meanwhile, the guys with the fancy trains like Philipsen and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) had to settle for fifth and seventh.
This was not only a massive thrill for Decathlon CMA CGM — it also takes a ton of pressure off the shoulders of young Paul Seixas. The Future of French Cycling can now relax a bit knowing the team already has their Tour win.
On messy, disorganized sprint stages like this, pure wattage doesn’t guarantee the big victory. It’s a day where good fortune and opportunism play a big role. On a sunny afternoon in Pau, the Cycling Gods looked down from the sky and said, “Him, the Decathlon guy, Kooij, that’s who is winning.”