Dylan Groenewegen didn’t come close to the podium places in the final mass sprint of this Tour de France on Wednesday. After months of preparation, the Dutchman is only left with disappointments from his eighth Tour de France.
The scene on the Boulevard Franklin Roosevelt perfectly reflects Groenewegen’s Tour. “It doesn’t get much sadder than this,” the sprinter says after the seventeenth stage, while looking out over a gray and rainy Valence in front of the Team Jayco AlUla bus.
On the slippery roads in southeastern France, the Amsterdammer continued a very meager series of results. Thirteenth, sixteenth, fifteenth, and fourteenth in the four mass sprints respectively; that’s the final tally for Groenewegen in the Tour.
In the past, he won six stages in the world’s biggest cycling race. “But now I’ve never been in a position to win,” Groenewegen concludes. “That’s very painful. Because I worked very hard for it.”
He was away from home more often in recent months than in previous seasons. He trained long and hard in Spain, away from his wife Nine Storms and son Mayson. Everything was focused on the Tour. “The big goal was to win a stage again. Before the Tour, it seemed like I would be good enough for that. But it didn’t work out four times. Unfortunately, I can’t change that anymore.”
Groenewegen doesn’t expect a chance in Paris
Normally, the sprinters get another chance at a stage victory in the final stage to Paris. But the Tour organization has chosen a final stage with three climbs of Montmartre this time, so nobody expects a mass sprint on the Champs-Élysées. “My chances are gone,” Groenewegen also says.
On the way to Valence, he and his teammates seemed to be in a good position in the final on Wednesday. “We wanted to be at the front of the peloton at the first roundabout (4 kilometers from the finish, ed.)”, Groenewegen’s teammate Elmar Reinders says. “We succeeded, but unfortunately Dylan was a bit further back. And then you know it’s going to be difficult on this ice rink. It was chaos.”
The four roundabouts in the final kilometers had become slippery due to the rain. Groenewegen slipped a bit on one of those difficult points. He stayed upright, but lost many positions. After that, he didn’t get to the front anymore, also because he was behind a major crash 1 kilometer from the finish.
“We were where we wanted to be, until I slipped,” Groenewegen says. “Well, there wasn’t much I could do about that. Of course, it’s annoying. I wasn’t in a good position in the previous sprints and now this again. That’s disappointing.”
The victory in Valence went to the Italian Jonathan Milan. The green jersey wearer has two wins in this Tour, just like the Belgian Tim Merlier. “They have been the two fastest men all season,” Groenewegen acknowledges. “For me, this is what it is for now. I can’t make more of it.”