Sports Director Merijn Zeeman looked back with pride at a good Vuelta a España for Team LottoNL-Jumbo. Bert-Jan Lindeman’s stage victory was the highlight in the grand tour in which all the three rookies reached the finish line in Madrid. John Degenkolb (Giant – Alpecin) won the final stage, Fabio Aru (Astana) the overall.

“It’s been a beautiful tour for us," sports director, Merijn Zeeman said after the finish in Madrid. “It was our goal to ride an aggressive race and force some good results from breakaway groups. We weren’t sure if a stage win was a realistic target for us, but we really wanted to show ourselves and invest in our youngsters. That we were able to win a stage is terrific, but the development of our younger riders is wonderful as well. It’s a positive thing that Tom Van Asbroeck, Timo Roosen and Mike Teunissen were able to reach Madrid without too many problems. We’re satisfied with that. Besides that, we were in many breakaway groups, showed our jersey and delivered some fine results alongside that stage win.”

One of the rookies who reached Madrid is Mike Teunissen.

“I’m feeling satisfied,” he added after the final stage. “Today was a formality, but I’m glad that I reached Madrid. Three weeks of racing isn’t a piece of cake. The first ten days went quite well, but it got heavier afterwards. I really had to push through in the last week, several times. I felt that I was getting more and more tired, but I made it. Tom, Timo and I improved ourselves uphill. Even in the gruppetto, you have to go very fast on the climbs. We were getting better and better this tour. We had to, because it’s impossible to make it otherwise.”

Process was the key word for DS Zeeman in his statement:

“The biggest satisfaction was after yesterday’s penultimate stage," Zeeman said. “Everyone was feeling great after that last, heavy mountain stage. We wanted to lead-out Tom as good as possible in today’s final stage. That didn’t turn out perfectly in the end. We’re working hard on the development of our sprint lead-out. We’re in the beginning of that process. We can improve that part of racing, but we’re not there yet. That’s what we’re going to work on in the upcoming period.”