Arensman's father apologizes after remarkable tweet aimed at INEOS Grenadiers

INEOS Grenadiers experienced a day of contrasting fortunes during the opening stage of the Giro d'Italia. On one hand, there was the formidable victory of Jhonatan Narváez, but on the other hand, the British team saw reserve leader Thymen Arensman lose significant time. His father commented on this shortly after the stage on X, with the implication seemingly directed towards the team. To clarify, Arensman himself has nothing to do with this.

Arensman himself declined to comment after the first stage when approached by our correspondent in Turin, but his father did speak out on X. "The nicest thing about starting a GT is that no trainer can crew up a cyclist form anymore for the next three weeks. Hopefully it won’t be too screwed up for now," he said after the time loss of over two minutes.

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Martijn Arensman received quite some reactions to this opinion – his tweets are personal in nature – and decided to delete them shortly afterward. "Yeah yeah, I'll delete and bite the dust," he later stated on his social media account.

Before the Giro, he also used X to question his son's role in this Giro, when it wasn't yet clear if Arensman was seen as a co-leader by INEOS Grenadiers. Our correspondent in Turin asked the Dutch cyclist about this, who couldn't help but smile at the time. "Don't listen to my father too much, haha!"

INEOS Grenadiers still has rock-solid confidence in Arensman

The team was obviously euphoric about Narváez' victory and the good performances of Geraint Thomas and Filippo Ganna, but sporting director Oliver Cookson told IDLProCycling.com that Arensman is still considered to have a crucial role in this Giro. "We are in a process with him and have a lot of confidence in Thymen."

"We know how strong he is in the last week and we know that this is a race where everything can still be turned around later on. We need to stay calm, he had to manage his effort, and then we know how good Thymen is and will be. He has a huge engine and we will definitely see that in action in this Giro," the team manager stated.