Thymen triumphs at Tour of the Alps

Thymen Arensman took an incredible solo win from over 80km out on the fourth stage of the Tour of the Alps, catapulting into the GC lead and taking his first win as a Grenadier.

With one final stage to go, Arensman will ride in the green leader’s jersey tomorrow after gaining an 11 second advantage on the GC.

The Grenadiers were active all day, with Kim Heiduk in a six-man break within the first 10km. Heiduk rode strongly, with the group whittling down to four and racking up a four minute lead, before being reeled back by the bunch around the 80km mark.

The peloton immediately counterattacked on the descent, before Arensman made his decisive move and attacked solo.

Tackling two categorised climbs on his own, Arensman continued to keep the lead, showing his strength and determination as the weather conditions worsened.

With 20km to go, it looked like Derek Gee (Israel - Premier Tech) was closing in, and GC leader Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) was less than a minute behind, but Arensman had a second wind and continued to power up the final climb of the day.

Reaching the summit with just 6km remaining, the flying Dutchman descended with ease, before riding up the final kicker to Obertilliach and taking the win by a minute and 18 seconds.

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Thymen Arensman:

"The start was super cold, and I was also really cold but I know I go quite well in the cold weather. Straight after the descent, everyone was really cold and Lidl-Trek lit it up and then it was only a small group left. It was quite tactical and I just figured ‘why not, just send it’. I went and I for a moment I thought ‘it’s actually quite far on my own’, but I felt pretty good. I knew everybody was tired from the cold weather. I kept pacing myself and fuelling well. It’s unbelievable.

"I remember the stage from 2022, together with Romain Bardet and actually also Michael Storer from the GC group and we rode away. Romain took the GC and I took the young rider classification, and now the green jersey. Let’s try to hold it tomorrow. It’s going to be hard but I think everybody will feel the legs after today."