Curaçao, Egypt and… Paris: Unibet Tietema Rockets the most represented team at Tour de France route presentation

In recent years, there has been a trend of fewer top riders heading to the Palais des Congrès for the presentation after a long season. This was also the case on Thursday: no Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, or even riders such as white jersey Florian Lipowitz and green jersey Jonathan Milan.

However, Matteo Trentin and Michael Storer from wildcard team Tudor, Jonas Abrahamsen on behalf of Uno-X, and Frenchmen Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) were present. But around 30 to 40 percent of the riders came from Unibet Tietema Rockets, which, in addition to owners Tietema, Devin van der Wiel, and Josse Wester, also sent riders Groenewegen, Adrien Maire, and Luka Kubis.

One year earlier, Wester and Groenewegen had their first talks at the same Tour presentation, which ultimately led to the imminent collaboration. In 2025, Groenewegen—well tanned—traveled directly from his vacation address with the Rockets in the TGV to the French capital.

“I landed from Curacao at 8:30 AM on Wednesday,” Groenewegen explains. “I was home around 10 or 10:30 AM, and by evening I was already on the train to Paris, where I spent the night. A.S.O. had already invited me, but it's nice that we were able to go together,” said Groenewegen about his travel companions.

“It's a beautiful route,” says Groenewegen. “But I really don't know how likely it is that we'll actually get to ride it. That's not something we can control. Looking at the team, I can see that we're ready. It would be a great honor, and I really hope so, but all we can do is hope for the most beautiful race of the year.”

Tietema explains why his team went to Paris with such a large delegation. “It shows that it's important to us,” says the team boss, who will be handing over his name to brand-new cycling sponsor ROSE next year. “Dylan had just returned from Curacao, and Lukas had planned his vacation to Egypt around it, so it's an important event for us. We took it very seriously.”

We spoke to Tietema—always good for excellent answers—during the Tour of Holland about a possible Tour participation in 2026, and as far as he is concerned, the situation remains the same. “I still have no idea. And I also think it will take a while. Last year, it was only announced in March, I believe.”