500 words about June

June might not be the busiest month of the year, but with races like Tour de Suisse, Critérium du Dauphiné, and the National Championships, there was still a lot to fight for – read all about it in 500 words.

At the beginning of the month, Casper van Uden came close to success at Heistse Pijl, before taking two fantastic sprint victories at ZLM Tour. This wasn’t only his third and fourth wins of the season, but an exciting first win on home Dutch soil for our young Dutch sprinter.

In Switzerland, Oscar Onley had a strong week as he came back from his third collarbone break in the last year.  Well-protected by his teammates, he climbed into the top ten on three stages, finishing eighth overall – a promising performance that led to his Tour de France debut this past weekend. Frank van den Broek had a great week too, which also led to his Tour debut this week.

After two solid rides on a hard opening weekend, Juliette Labous had a tough third stage in Switzerland. The team bounced back on day four, showing an attacking mindset, racing offensively. Nienke Vinke broke away, before Juliette counterattacked from the bunch, bridging across to take a good gap with a strong group. Ultimately, it wasn’t to be as Juliette ultimately finished seventh, and fourth in the final GC, with Nienke close behind in 15^th on both the stage and GC.

The team had a great National Championships week – as strong performances led to fantastic titles for Josie Nelson, Juliette Labous, Pfeiffer Georgi, Franziska Koch, and Emils Liepins.

The month concluded with the Tour de France Grand Départ and the most special opening weekend. In a true tactical masterclass, Romain Bardet jumped across to teammate Frank van den Broek in the early breakaway. The duo rode away from the rest of the break with full commitment, holding on for an incredible one-two on the stage. Romain claimed the first yellow jersey on his farewell Tour de France, while Frank was rewarded with the green and the white jersey for his daring ride. The team also enjoyed a touch of yellow to their helmets and glasses on stage two as leaders in the team classification. Romain narrowly (by six seconds!) missed out on defending the jersey, but nobody will ever forget our day in yellow. There is still more to come from us as we head to France!

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL head coach Rudi Kemna concluded: “It’s really been a great month. ZLM Tour showed that we are making good steps within our sprint group, while our young GC guys stepped up with nice teamwork and good results in Switzerland. The opening weekend of the Tour de France was a great success – we showed true team performances, both at the front and the back of the race, and we can be very proud of ourselves. We hope to show more of this throughout the upcoming weeks, and I’m confident that we’ll do just that. And with the Giro Donne looming, our Women’s program look set for a great month too.”

We’re excited for what July brings and hope to see you cheering for us from the side of the road!