We came out of June with an amazing team victory at stage one of the Tour de France, which was a great boost for the whole team. With the rest of the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia Women, and High Altitude Camp, July has been another busy month for the team. Here’s the overview, as concise as possible and no more than 500 words!
After the outstanding performance on the opening day and the memorable day in yellow and green the day after, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL was committed to further shaping the race by being active in the breakaways and sprint finishes too. In the sprints, Fabio Jakobsen aimed to improve on the promising fifth and seventh places that were secured in the sprints in the opening week. However, the days since the rest day were especially challenging for the Dutch sprinter, and he had to step off the bike during stage 11. This was a hard loss for the team, but they kept their morale high and fought together for results day by day. Not all efforts were rewarded, but John Degenkolb fought to a solid ton ten result, Oscar Onley took a really promising 5th place, before Romain Bardet showed a brave ride to 10th in what was his last ever road stage of the Tour de France.
Meanwhile, our Women’s program took on the Giro d’Italia Women. The team showed a great performance all week with podiums on stages three and eight by Juliette Labous and Franziska Koch. Juliette rounded off the great teamwork with further top-ten results on numerous stages, culminating in a solid sixth place in the GC.
Around the same time, a group led by Max Poole gathered in Austria for a High-Altitude camp to prepare for their goals in the final part of the season. For Max, this marks another step on his way back to racing after his crash at Tirreno-Adriatico, and we can’t wait to see him back in action soon.
