Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) narrowly outpaced arch-rival Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) to clinch the opening road stage of the Tour of Holland.
Hard on the heels of teammate Ethan Hayter's opening win in Tuesday evening's prologue, Merlier clinched the Belgian squad's second victory in the Netherlands in as many days and 50th of the 2025 season with a fast final kick.
Having led out the sprint in Dordrecht, the Netherlands' oldest city, Kooij finished less than a bike-length behind Merlier, with Tobias Lund Andresen (Picnic PostNL) a much more distant third.
Heading into Thursday's key individual time trial, Lidl-Trek's Jakob Söderqvist will be the new race leader, having picked up bonus seconds in an intermediate sprint.
"It was the 50th victory of the team this year, so a nice one," Merlier said about winning what will likely be the only bunch sprint of the week.
"I'm pretty much on the end now, it was a really hard one, I think I'm a bit out of condition, but a win is a win.
"It was definitely, to be honest, a really dangerous stage, with a lot of obstacles, the peloton was really nervous, so I'm happy in the end that I'm safe.
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"Anyway, we've won two stages, so I think our week is already a success."
How it unfolded
On a flat, exposed day of racing across central Holland, Javier Serrano (Polti Visit Malta), Stijn Appel (BEAT Cycling Club), Jelle Bouma (Diftar Continental), Niek Hoornsman (Metec-SOLARWATT) and Luke Verburg (Parkhotel Valkenburg) got away early on, but their gap of just under a minute with less than 80km to go hardly boded well for their chances.
Their margin continued to hover at roughly the same margin as the stage ran past a never-ending succession of canals and broad rivers, with Picnic PostNL, Soudal-QuickStep and Visma-Lease a Bike all chasing in the main group. Even though Appel was unable to hold the pace, the remainder of the quartet – three of them doubtless motivated by being from local Continental squads – persisted in their effort. But despite Hoornsman making a last-minute solo bid for freedom when the race headed onto an embankment path with 21 kilometres to go, the four were reeled in.
There were briefly some interesting splits, with John Degenkolb (Picnic PostNL) one of the most active riders as the bunch strung out on the exposed roads. However, time and again Soudal-QuickStep – working both for Merlier and Hayter – reeled them back in. Then there was another flurry of activity in the Red Bull kilometre, where Lidl-Trek put in a concerted effort and Jakob Söderqvist clinched the top spot ahead of young rider leader and teammate Cameron Rogers – and with it a time bonus which eventually propelled him into the top spot overall.
Picnic PostNL, Alpecin-Deceuninck and XDS Astana were all insistent on keeping the pace high, as the race blasted off a local circuit and the series of canal paths and made its way back towards the start/finish town of Dordrecht. Using a mixture of smoothly surfaced broader highways and some much narrower pathways as well when touching speeds of nearly 60kmh, given the usual Dutch plethora of road furniture there was almost always a clear risk of crashes. Fortunately, the Red Bull and Visma-Lease a Bike-led pack were able to hold the front together safely, the roads stayed dry despite the dark clouds overhead, and the much straighter approach roads also helped reduced the potential for accidents, just as the race reached its final crescendo.
Astana made one concerted effort, then Lidl-Trek took the lead into the final kilometre, but a sharp lefthand corner and the slightly rising gradient onto the bridge –unusually – hosting the finish saw another major reworking of front-end positions in a chaotic sprint. Racing near his home town and with plenty of local supporters at the finish line, Kooij made a concerted bid up the left-hand side of the road, only for Merlier to time his effort marginally better and come past in the closing metres to claim his 16th win of the season.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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