“It was a hectic final lap. The team played a really big part today, especially with positioning and keeping me out of the wind. A big chapeau to them. To win my first professional race today makes me very happy,” Hobbs says.

The final stage was shaped for much of the day by a seven-rider breakaway, with six riders remaining in the finale. Team Visma | Lease a Bike helped to keep the pace high in the peloton and played its part in bringing the breakaway back inside the final three kilometers. That set up a sprint for the stage victory, with Hobbs proving to be the fastest. The Brit was able to cap off the strong work of his teammates with a beautiful finish to five days of racing in the Netherlands.

“After five days of hard racing in the Netherlands, it’s great to finish it this way. Especially with this young team,” says sports director Arthur van Dongen. “They worked more and more together throughout the week and put in a fantastic team effort today to get this victory. On top of that, everyone developed strongly throughout the week and got better every day.”

“This is a great compliment to our scouting department, which has done a great job identifying these guys and supporting them through our development program. This is the first race they’ve competed in at the professional level, and to finish it this way means a lot to the team,” Van Dongen concludes.

With Hobbs’ victory, the ZLM Tour ends on a high note for Team Visma | Lease a Bike. For the Brit, the win marks another important step in his development and his first victory in a professional peloton.