Image 1 of 10
Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) powered to new heights with his first WorldTour victory on stage 2 of Paris-Nice. The Dutchman outsprinted a top field of fast men to take the biggest win of his career and of his team’s career.
This is the Swiss team’s first victory at WorldTour level in just their second season as a ProTeam. A lack of wind on the 177km route led to a mainly slow day of racing from Thoiry to Montargis, with the Swiss team getting the fast run into the finish right and positioning their sprinter in prime position for the key duo of roundabouts in the last 2km.
Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ) continued his brilliant start to the season with second on the stage ahead of Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla) and took six more bonus seconds, but couldn’t come around De Kleijn.
The 21-year-old Kiwi moved into the yellow GC leader’s jersey thanks to his bonus time gains ahead of Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike), with the trio all on the same time.
“I think I’ve been close a couple of times and I was chasing a WorldTour victory. It’s nice to grab it like this. Everybody could see it was a great team performance,” said De Kleijn before crediting experienced teammate Matteo Trentin, who was brought into the Tudor setup for 2024.
“He [Trentin] knew exactly what to do. He said we had to stay calm until the end and then he did an amazing pull and then I have the two Dutchies in front of me and they did an incredible job.
“Today was all in for me and it was nice to finish it off.”
De Kleijn was almost caught out when Danny van Poppel opened the sprint but ensured last man Maikel Zijlaard was out of his way so he could latch onto his compatriot’s wheel.
“I was the last 200 and I was a little…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…