July recap – Big summer of racing

July was a big month of racing across all of our programs and an extra special one at that, our first as Team dsm-firmenich.

Our Women’s program were the first to ride in our brand-new colours at the Giro Donne and they made sure that the jersey was visible all week.

With the first stage cancelled due to bad weather conditions, it was down to stage two to shape the GC with a longer climb in the final. Juliette directly confirmed her ambitions sprinting to third place from the chasing group, after being set up by the team perfectly. On the following sprint day, the team did some great work to bring Megan into position for the sprint, where she finished fourth, coming close to the podium. After another fourth place for Juliette on stage five, everything came down to a big GC battle on stage seven. On the hard course to Alassio, Juliette was brought into the final seamlessly, where she went on to follow the best riders, finishing second on the stage to secure her second place in the GC. On the final day, Megan sprinted to her second top five of the race, while Juliette finished safely in the bunch. Juliette’s second place in the final GC was the first ever Grand Tour podium in Team dsm-firmenich’s Women’s program’s long and successful history. The strong teamwork throughout the whole race was ultimately crowned with a historic result for the team.

A proud Juliette said: “I am very happy to take this second place on GC. It’s really awesome. If you had said it to me before the start I would have been surprised as I had some doubts about my shape before, but nobody in the team doubted me. I really felt the trust they had in me. This week was really awesome, the work we all did. It’s my second place but it’s the whole team’s also because it was just teamwork; from the staff and the girls. We always had the race in our hands. This was just an awesome feeling from the start of the race to the end actually. I just want to thank everybody from staff, riders and also everyone at the HQ – everyone who is behind this. I think we can all be proud of this podium at the Giro; thanks to everyone!”

Meanwhile, also the Development program went to the start for the first time in the new kit at the Giro Ciclisto della Valle d’Aosta. While the focus was on making the next steps in development and working on the basics, things paid off really well on stage 4. On the Queen stage, Mauro Brenner managed to get into the break and fight himself to the line. He fought all the way to the line on the brutal parcours, finishing third on the day and getting his first-ever podium in the U23 category.

While the Men’s program was in action at the Tour de France, the sprint group of the Women’s program finalized their preparations towards the Tour de France Femmes at the Baloise Belgium Tour. The race turned into a great display of power by the girls with Charlotte Kool not only winning the Prologue but also the following three sprint stages. In the TT of stage 3b, it was Daniek Hengeveld and Léa Curinier holding up the colours for the team finishing seventh and ninth on the day. Unfortunately, Charlotte and Pfeiffer Georgi had to leave the race the days after due to sickness, but the girls kept fighting and led Léa to finish sixth in the final GC and winning the best young rider classification.

The Women’s program rounded off their month at the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes. On the punchy opening day, Charlotte Kool showed a remarkable effort, finishing third on the day. Unfortunately, Juliette Labous suffered from the heat and lost some ground for the GC, but everyone was eager to bounce back. She tried her luck with several attacks on the coming testing day, but the other teams wouldn’t let her go. On stage six everything should have come done to a bunch sprint, but Norsgaard could survive from the breakaway by a blink of an eye, while Charlotte was the fastest from the bunch, finishing in the bittersweet second place. On the epic mountain stage, leading to the Col de Tourmalet, Juliette fought here way back up in GC, crowned by a strong TT on the last day. She finished fifth in GC, seeing her finishing in the top 10 of all three big stage races this season.

Also the Development program had a big stage race to conclude the month with the Tour d’Alsace. After a solid opening TTT, the team was eager to show themselves on the coming days. Vlad van Mechelen came very close to his first win in Team dsm-firmenich colours by sprinting into a nice second place on stage two. The GC was shaped on day three with the stage leading up La Planche des Belles Filles. The team’s new signing Frank van den Broek showed himself finishing inside the top 10 on the day. He could prove his full potential on the final day, where he sprinted to glory from a three-men leading group, taking home his first win in new colours just a few days after joining the team.

With another big month of racing in the books, season is far from over yet. We have big goals across all three programs still and we hope to see you keep following us on our way to achieve them.