Coach Visma | LaB, Arthur van Dongen, reflects proudly on the Dutch Championships with silver medalist Kooij: "An easy course, but difficult to control"

“I think it was a fair sprint,” said Kooij just after the finish as runner-up in this Dutch National Championship. “My legs were a bit empty, although I squeezed everything out of them. I felt Danny closing in, and unfortunately, I crossed the line just too late. I don't think I did anything wrong, just a fair winner.”

“Danny is in a different build-up to the Tour; you could see that in the run-up to this race,” analyzed Kooij, who himself came straight from the Giro. “He's at a really high level, and I'm a bit empty. It's good for me to rest now and build up again. It's great for him that he can become champion.”

Arthur, tell us about the Dutch National Championships.
"Danny was able to get out of Olav's slipstream, which was perfect for him. It was a matter of centimeters, and it's always easy to talk after the fact, but I haven't spoken to Olav yet.

In any case, I'm proud of how we rode as a team and kept everything under control so that Olav could sprint. It's a shame and disappointing that we lost by only a slight margin, but when I see the Danny van Poppel of the past few weeks, it's no surprise."

You guys get a lot of attention at a national championship like this, but you only had seven riders at the start (including youngster Sjors Lugthart). How difficult is that?
"Tijmen Graat showed in Switzerland how well he was riding, but this National Championship course is not his specialty, of course. All the guys had one goal: to push themselves hard for Olav. We made a good plan beforehand, stuck to it, and executed it. But everyone sacrificed their chances completely for Olav."

Dylan van Baarle and Wilco Kelderman had to do their work quite early on, it seemed?
"We wanted to keep Bart Lemmen and Loe van Belle deep into the final and Tijmen and Sjors at the beginning. Then, the field would be reduced. Dylan was very strong, just like in the Dutch time trial championships. He kept the peloton under control for the most part in the final hour, so hats off to him. However, that applies to everyone, so once again, everyone rode strongly. It was an easy course but very difficult to control."

Olav has just finished the Giro and also crashed in Copenhagen. How good was he?
"His knees don't look great. But anyway, he just felt good for this race, so that's not the problem."

One more thing. That first week of the Tour... you were recently in the Four Days of Dunkirk and know how things work in the classic spring races. What should we expect there?
"We've had numerous starts like this, and we all know it can get hectic. Everyone wants to be at the front, and I think the classification teams will invest a lot to ride at the front, while the sprinters’ teams won't be sitting back either.

Some of the stages are a bit more challenging in the final, so that could also make for some spectacular racing. I hope that no GC contenders are dropped by several minutes or worse, which I would rather not think about. However, with this route layout, which I understand from the perspective that this is France, it's always more dangerous than a stage in Florence or Bilbao. That brings a lot of danger with it, and it could get exciting."

With Wout van Aert, you have someone who can do everything, including winning the yellow jersey in the first stage. What can we expect from him in that first stage: sprinting or looking out for him ?
"Both. We'll decide the days with Wout, but the main goal is clear, and that is to get Jonas safely through those days."