To describe Olav Kooij’s Giro d’Italia bunch sprint victory at Naples as ‘hard fought’ would surely be something of an understatement, with the Visma-Lease A Bike fastman taking a narrow but convincing triumph ahead of Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) on a day anything but certain to be resolved by a mass dash for the line.
Being bereft of a leadout man following Christophe Laporte’s abandon earlier this week was just one of the challenges facing Kooij on stage 9, as a series of late attacks by punchy riders of the calibre of Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) on a late chain of hills tested the sprint teams capacity to control affairs to the limit.
Narváez was only caught with less than 100 metres to go, and only then could Kooij be certain that he had a chance of going for a bunch sprint win.
But the fact that the Dutchman was resourceful and tenacious enough to remain in contention on a day when several teams fielding sprinters in the Giro d’Italia, including his own, failed to work for a bunch sprint bodes tremendously well for Kooij.
The Visma-Lease A Bike racer now has a staggering 33 wins in his palmares despite being just 22 years old and after Naples, he is able to celebrate one of them being a victory in his first-ever Grand Tour as well.
“I had to improvise in the last kilometres without Christophe Laporte who’d normally be my leadout man, but we thought that [teammate] Tim van Dijke would ideally bring me into a good position in the last kilometre, which he did perfectly,” Kooij told reporters.
“I knew Narváez was still in front but I just stayed on the wheels so I didn’t really see where he was. But then in the last sprint we passed him and I was also able to pass Jonathan Milan as well.”
Not many fastmens’ teams had been really confident in stage 9 culminating in a sprint at all, Kooij said, pointing to how narrow the difference between success in pulling back Narváez break and failing to do so had been. That was not counting the other riders like Alaphilippe who were also placing dangerous late attacks as well.
“It was mostly a day in favour of Alpecin-Deceuninck as [Kaden] Groves is climbing so well,” he argued.
“Some guys [sprinters] have already left the race and we also didn’t have the numbers to control the final. But sprints are also not just about power, but also about having the right timing and I had that today.”
Kooij was lacking his last man in the Visma-Lease A Bike sprint train to guide him in the final metres at Naples, but while sprinting to victory the Dutchman also had a ringside seat for the rare sight of a Grand Tour leader like Tadej Pogačar acting as a leadout man, in this case for UAE sprinter Juan Sebastian Molano.
“Initially I was not sure what he was doing there, I thought first they just wanted him to be safe,” Kooij recounted.
“But they really stretched it out and closed the gap, so t was great to see Tadej and how they raced for Molano, to really commit to his chances.”
Kooij, though, was the rider who finally made it first to the line, following up his sixth, fourth and ninth places earlier this week with his fifth win of the 2024 season, four of them in the WorldTour.
“To win the first one is really special, it was something I was aiming for, after winning some nice races this was the next step for me, to try and win a stage in the Grand Tour.”
“To do that in my first Grand Tour is something special,” he concluded. And to do so in such difficult race circumstances as those Kooij faced in stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia, surely even more so.
