Soudal Quick-Step’s neo-pro impresses on the first stage of the Tour de Luxembourg.
Making his first outing since last month’s Bretagne Classic, Pepijn Reinderink put in a great ride on the hilly roads of the opening day, at the end of which he took to the podium to receive the climbers’ jersey.
The 22-year-old, who has showcased his strength in a number of races this season, forged clear in the frantic opening kilometers of stage 1 and was soon joined by three riders, together with whom he managed to put almost six minutes into the peloton. When the chasers upped the tempo, around 80 kilometers from home, Pepijn attacked from the break and dropped all his companions, except Mattia Bais (Polti-Kometa). The duo worked really well together, trading pulls at the front and forcing the bunch to dig deep in order to chew into their advantage.
It took the combined efforts of several teams and the steep gradients of Côte de Stafelter for the gap to drop under one minute, but even then, Reinderink didn’t throw in the towel and with one last effort dispatched the Italian and continued alone. The Dutchman crested the summit in the lead, scoring more vital points that put him in control of the KOM classification after this stage, which concluded with the victory of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
“The stage was full gas from the start. I jumped at one point and suddenly there were four of us who opened a gap, which was quite good. In the second part of the stage, we had cross-tail wind, so we sensed there was a chance of making it. We pushed really hard, but the peloton was stronger and caught us. Luckily, I took the points on the final climb and at the end of the day, I am pretty happy with everything. We’ll see if I can keep the jersey over the next stages”, said Pepijn, the first Dutchman in 12 years to wear the Tour de Luxembourg climbers’ jersey.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele / Getty Images
