There may have been no love lost between Fabio Jakobsen and Dylan Groenewegen after their awful crash at the Tour de Pologne two years ago but it looked suspiciously like the sprint rivals had found some common at a post-Tour criterium in the Netherlands this evening.
Groenewegen (BikeExchange-Jayco) managed to somehow get his timing completely wrong as he lunged for the line during an intermediate sprint against Jakobsen (QuickStep Alpha Vinyl).
He stopped pedaling long before the line and threw his bike far too early, with Jakobsen taking the prime. The organisers said there was a €10,000 prize on offer for the sprint.
As well as Groenewegen and Jakobsen in the race, Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl) also rode as well as Dutch champion Pascal Eenkhoorn (Jumbo Visma), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) and and Martijn Tusveld (Team DSM).
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The victory - after some very controlled looking breakaways - went to Van der Poel ahead of, Cavendish and Groenewegen. Mercifully, the final sprint looked a bit more convincing than the intermediate sprint.
The event is among a series of criteriums held in the week after the Tour de France in various locations across Europe.
The top Tour riders - and sometimes big names who didn't ride the French race - are paid appearance money to turn up and take part on the night, as high as €50,000 according to some reports. The events have a fixed outcome, with the local favourite - especially if they have done well in the Tour - winning.
At one of the biggest post-Tour crits, in Aalst, Belgium, last night, double Tour stage winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won ahead of Tour stage 1 TT winner and first yellow jersey Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl). Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), 3rd in the Tour, took 3rd place in Aalst.
The appearance money is in the tens of thousands of Euros for the big names and there are often huge prizes on offer. It is all funded by the local organisations who run the events, with sponsorships and charging spectators into the courses to watch the events.
