On the first day the riders faced a flat 170km stage between Surhuisterveen and Dokkum. On paper that would appear to be a perfect stage for a bunch sprint, but strong winds decided otherwise and made the peloton break off into several echelons.
A seven-man breakaway featuring Julien Duval, Luke Durbridge, Guillaume Boivin, Logan Owen, Arjen Livyns, Ludovic Robeet and Ward Vanhoof, was allowed a handsome lead early on in the stage, but the race finally exploded due to strong crosswinds in the second half of the stage.
A new breakaway group formed with over 30 riders, including several big names. Pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel was one of those, but he dramatically dropped out of the leading group with mechanical trouble.
A group with Mohoric, Colbrelli, Benoot, Asgreen and Teunissen tried to escape ahead of the Golden Kilometre, but was soon caught, as was a late effort by Pöstlberger. In the streets of Dokkum a thinned out peloton sprinted for victory, which went to Tim Merlier, ahead of Bauhaus and Hodeg.
Evenepoel suffered a one-minute blow in the general classification, but still has a chance to fight for the overall win.
Merlier has “no idea” how he won stage one
Following stage wins in the Giro and Tour de France, Tim Merlier has also added a stage win in the Benelux Tour to his list of honours. The Alpecin-Fenix sprinter managed to survive the echelon battle to take an impressive sprint win.
“From the start it was clear it would be a nervous stage,” Merlier told his story of the race. “The wind caused a lot of chaos and I never had the feeling I would manage to stay in the first echelon. I really had to put in a sprint to stay with it. I have no idea how I did it, but in the end I was the last man to hang on.
“From then on I knew I had to help pull and make sure I was in the right place at the most crucial moments. I really used my Wahoo GPS map to make sure I didn’t get caught out. Teammate Gianni [Vermeersch] was the perfect man to counter all the attacks. He was mad at me for a bit when I wasn’t at the front, but in the end it all worked out.
“In the final kilometre I was well positioned coming out of the final turn. Then I just had to wait until the right moment to launch my sprint.”
