Bas Tietema and Unibet Rosé Rockets do crazy things and now even add Marcel Kittel to sprint train

In the wave of interesting contracts being handed out at Unibet Rosé Rockets, there is once again big news to report this Saturday. No one less than Marcel Kittel is set to strengthen the team, with, of course, another delicious introductory video via the channels of Bas Tietema and company. Kittel will of course not take a place in the sprint train himself, but he will build it!

Kittel stopped professional racing after 2019, but in recent years has remained a welcome guest in the peloton. The now-37-year-old German was especially active as an analyst and he also carries a number of sponsors. ROSE, the new co-sponsor of the Rockets, may well have played an important role in Kittel’s arrival.

The brand already worked in the past with the former sprint-bomb and thus the announcement that Kittel will work in the staff of Unibet Rosé Rockets is a little less strange. Also, from a work-perspective, he will get a very interesting project: building a successful sprint train around new recruit and sprinter-team‐leader Dylan Groenewegen.

“I can help you build a winning sprint train,” we hear Kittel say in a video, in which he is introduced as a new staff member. (quote – verify) And you could do worse: Kittel won 4 stages in the Giro d’Italia, 14 in the Tour de France and one in the Vuelta a España. He added 89 victories to his palmarès and stopped already after 2019 at the age of 31 because he was “mentally a bit tied up”.

The transfer period of Unibet Rosé Rockets is becoming truly crazy in this way. In addition to Groenewegen, his regular lead-out rider Elmar Reinders and Kittel, the team has already invested heavily in other riders. For example, climbers Wout Poels and Victor Lafay signed with the team, and time-trial specialist Niklas Larsen is also joining the squad. What will follow next?