Thymen Arensman (Netcompany Ineos) missed his start time for the Tour de France stage 16 individual time trial, arriving on the start ramp in a panic and then waving his arm in frustration after being pushed down the ramp by officials. Yet he still managed to produce a strong ride.
The Dutch rider was not in sight as the clock ticked down to his official start time of 16:25:30. He appeared ten seconds later, with a race official who was there to hold him for the start of his ride also late and almost falling in the rush for them to get to the start ramp.
Under UCI rules, Arensman had to stop on the start line and eventually got going about 15 seconds after his official time. He waved his arm in frustration before getting up to speed for the rolling 26.1km time trial overlooking Lake Geneva.
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Arensman finished five seconds off the fastest pace set by Mattia Cattaneo (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), missing out on the hot seat by a margin much smaller than his start delay.
NOS commentator Sebastiaan Timmerman witnessed the incident, stating on the television coverage, "Arensman just kept sitting in the tent while they were counting down. Someone from the ASO ran towards him, while a team member stood in front of him with the bike.
"Then he suddenly jumped on the bike and rode to the podium. The team staff dropped the ball."
Arensman spoke in Dutch to media after the stage, taking responsibility for the error.
"It is my own responsibility. I was focused, but neither the team physio nor anyone from the UCI signaled that I had to go,” Arensman said according to Wielerflits.nl. “That’s a bummer, but I tried not to lose my head and pedal as hard as possible. It is frustrating, of course."
Arensman settled into his effort, quickly banishing the negative energy from the missed start, however.
“Being frustrated about it doesn't get me anywhere. To channel it into other energy, but I am only human… Especially in the third week. It sucks, but there is little I can do about it. The team and I mainly have to learn from it."
Arensman won two mountain stages at the 2025 Tour de France and finished 12th overall. He finished fourth at this year's Giro d'Italia and was second to teammate Filippo Ganna in the flat Tuscan time trial. However he admitted he had a difficult recovery and build-up for this year's Tour de France. He is 29th in the general classification, over 90 minutes behind Tadej Pogačar.
Arensman was timed as fourth fastest at the first intermediate time check but Netcompany Ineos had hoped he would perform well.
"With Thymen, he was obviously second in the Giro stage, did a good TT there and he's improved a lot. It's more about the opportunity of giving it a go," the teams' Head of Racing Geraint Thomas told TNT before his ride.
"There's been a lot of work with his coach and the engineering side of things, the equipment, his position, how he gets the power out on the bike; it's not just about being super aero. And then just time doing it, training in that position and putting in some real hours, so fair play to him and the team around him, they've done a really good job."
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