Today it was the first race of the year. Something I had really looked forward to. We even got a wildcard for the Santos Tour Down Under. So that was the first race. Our goal in the race was tough. We had to win a stage. I knew we could win a stage, but then the riders had to believe in themselves. I told the riders so, before we travelled to Australia.

Our squad


Stage 1:



Because our goal was a stage win, we had to participate in the breakaways. So the riders from our team went every time, there were a chance. After some tries Mickaël Buffaz got away with Daniel Oss and Davide Vigano. Davide and Daniel did most of the work, so Mickaël could just sit and wait till the end.


When the breakaway came to the climb of the day, Mickaël had saved enough power to win the sprint. The others didn’t even try to win it. Pretty good job by Mickaël, because now he has the climber’s jersey tomorrow. That can help us a bit in the hunt for the stage win. Mickaël now believes more in him self than before


Unfortunately the breakaway couldn’t make it till the end, so the stage was going to end in a mass sprint. I was hoping so much, that Samuel could win, but our train couldn’t match the other trains. It was still pretty impressive with the 4th place. Tomorrow our goal will be the same.

Today it was the second stage of the Santos Tour Down Under. A day with a route that looked pretty good for our captain Samuel Dumoulin. Our goal was to get him in to top 3, and we knew how to do that.




There were a lot of attacks in the start of the stage. But we controlled it, so no good riders managed to get away. Nico Sijmens did a very good job by controlling the pace. He did it so good that when we passed the first intermedia sprint, Samuel Dumoulin won the sprint in front of Mark Cavendish.


When we passed the mountain sprint of the day, Mickaël Buffaz had to attack to keep his mountain jersey. No other riders attacked, so it was pretty easy for Mickaël to win the sprint. A little later he decided to breakaway again.


Just when I thought that Mickaël was going to win the stage, the peloton started to up the pace, and the catched him with only 5 kilometers to go. At that point I felt a little sad for Mickaël. It was now all down to Samuel.


The final kilometers was total chaos. All the favourites tried to get away. But not us. Samuel knew when to attack and he attacked when the time was right. He got company of Chris Froome and Björn Leukemans. At the end it wasn't enough and Samuel couldn't win.