Olav Kooij led Wout van Aert home for a Jumbo-Visma one-two on the opening stage of the Tour of Britain in Manchester, the pair beating out Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the sprint finish.
Van Aert provided the lead-out for his 21-year-old teammate with Edoardo Affini having dropped the pair off in a perfect position to sprint. The Belgian's final lead-out left Kooij with little work to do at the finish, and his power was such that he could still hold off Bennett to secure second place.
"The entire team made a good effort," Kooij said later. "It was quite difficult to get the break back – that was already quite an effort. Still, the team managed to get Wout and me through the last corner in first and second places. Then all I had to do was go full speed to the finish.
"The fact that everyone was so involved makes the victory even better. [Wout] is one of the best cyclists in the world. To have him as the lead-out gives a lot of confidence. You can trust that everything will work out."
Jumbo-Visma were among several teams working late on to catch the break of the day, along with Bora-Hansgrohe and Movistar.
The WorldTour teams eventually dragged back breakaway survivors Zeb Kyffin, Jack Rootkin-Gray (Saint Piran), and Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X) inside the final kilometres to set up a bunch sprint finish after Harry Tanfield (TDT-Unibet) and James Fouché (Bolton Equities Black Spoke) had earlier dropped back.
In the end, it was the men in yellow of Jumbo-Visma who took control on the final run to the finish line, the strongest squad in the race showing their organisation and power to set up the lead-out.
The Van Aert-Kooij lead-out proved as unstoppable as it had looked on paper, with both men having more than enough to beat their rival sprinters on the flat run to the line. It was left to Bennett to trail in behind for a podium spot ahead of Max Kanter (Movistar) and Ethan Vernon (Great Britain) lined out behind him.
With his stage win, number eight of the season, Kooij takes on the first race leader's jersey of the week as well as the points and youth jerseys. With 16 points accumulated across the day from the break, Fouché is the first mountain classification leader of the 2023 Tour of Britain.
Results
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