You’d be forgiven for thinking that Dylan Groenewegen might never want to return to the Critérium du Dauphiné. After a week spent chasing lost causes, the Dutchman left empty-handed before the mountains of the final weekend.
Or did he? Although he only managed to sprint on one occasion, even that being for seventh place, the Dauphiné was there to serve a greater good.
“The reason we brought him here is we’re trying something different with him. He’s never done Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse as preparation for the Tour,” BikeExchange-Jayco director Matt White told Cyclingnews.
“The idea was to give him a different load, a harder load, and we’ve got some good condition out of it."
Groenewegen would have had to have kept the prospect of the Tour at the front of his mind, otherwise the Dauphiné would have become pretty disheartening. The hilly parcours did not lend itself to clear-cut bunch sprint opportunities, and the fact that Groenewegen was one of only two pure sprinters in the field only reduced his chances.
On the opening day, he was dropped as Jumbo-Visma ignited the race on the climbs, and was forced into a fruitless chase with his teammates. It would become a familiar sight, repeating itself the following day and again on stage 5. The one day Groenewegen did survive the climbs and finish in the bunch, the breakaway stayed away, and he had to settle for second place from the bunch behind Edvald Boasson Hagen.
“We’re realistic. We knew it would be touch and go, there could have been three sprints or none. We can’t control how other teams race against us,” White said.
“But what we knew is we’d get some hard racing that sets him up for what’s to come. It’s glass half full, glass half empty. We got what we wanted. We’d have liked to have had an opportunity to win a stage as well, but that was out of our hands.”
White insisted that Groenewegen, who decided not to ride the mountain stages, finds himself in good condition and appeared optimistic about the Tour. The Dutchman, who was banned for a portion of last year after his involvement in Fabio Jakobsen’s Tour of Poland crash, was a new signing at the start of this season and has won four times this season - two stages at the Saudi Tour, one at the Tour d’Hongrie, and Veenendaal Classic.
“Change is difficult for everyone, but he’s slotted in really well,” White said. “The key guy for him at the Tour is Luka Mezgec, who’s one of the most experienced lead-out men in the world. That relationship will be the key for us, and it started at Saudi.
“This Dauphiné was all part of the process for him to arrive in optimal condition for the race that matters and that’s the Tour de France. It’ll be a different story there. We won’t be the only ones who want bunch sprints, so it’ll be a different story.”
