Sports director Sierk Jan de Haan: “It’s the first race of the season in Europe, so we’ll have to start the engines again. The most important thing is to win a sprint stage with Dylan. The stage starts with a ten kilometre long time trial. The last seven hundred metres have an average gradient of ten percent. Tony and Jos can take their chance here.”

‘Bitterballen’, ‘hagelslag’ and ‘tijdrijden’. How well does Tony Martin know the Dutch language? We gave him a small test.