Although he had to wait until stage 12, Olav Kooij eventually managed to secure a stage win at the 2025 Giro d’Italia on Thursday afternoon, powering to the win in his typically impressive sprint fashion. For the 23-year-old Dutchman, that win goes down as the 40th of his pro career already.
“I’d put him right alongside Tim Merlier, Jasper Philipsen, and Jonathan Milan — he belongs in that elite group,” evaluates ex-pro turned expert analyst Thijs Zonneveld on the In de Waaier podcast, with the Dutchman full of praise for his young compatriot. “He’s just so fast, and he’s fast everywhere. There’s hardly a stage race he enters where he doesn’t win. Time and again, he delivers, no matter the course or location.”
“I think there was more relief than joy,” Zonneveld adds. “Kooij is simply the fastest man in the Giro, and when you get a lead-out like that from Wout van Aert, you’re almost obliged to finish it off. That he managed to do just that will have taken a huge weight off his shoulders.”
Already a Grand Tour stage winner at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, Kooij has now bagged a win on each of his first two appearances in the three-week stage races. “He’s incredibly composed in a sprint. If a war broke out, he’d still be calm. That kind of poise shows in the chaos of a sprint.
He’s so mature — he understands that if it doesn’t work out today, it will tomorrow,” analyses Zonneveld. “And the pressure? I don’t think he feels it at all. You just can’t rattle Kooij. Maybe it wasn’t even such a big relief for him personally. I think the pressure is more on the team than on him. He just doesn’t get flustered, and that’s a fantastic trait.”
And as already mentioned, the fact that Kooij can call upon Van Aert for a leadout is another massive benefit for the Team Visma | Lease a Bike prodigy. “Normally you’d expect riders to falter in that corner, especially since Van Aert had already done a 650-meter lead-out.
At first, I thought he went too early, but then he managed to regain speed after the corner and set up Kooij perfectly — it was phenomenal,” Zonneveld assesses. “People were already saying what a great sprint train they had. But Van Aert and Kooij haven’t even raced together much. That’s what makes this so scary.”
If rumours are to be believed though, Kooij’s desire to target the Tour de France might see the Dutchman depart Team Visma | Lease a Bike at the end of the 2025 season. “Unfortunately, we might not see it (Van Aert & Kooij combining ed.) again,” Zonneveld rues. “Kooij is expected to transfer to Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, where he’ll get a real sprint train.”
There’s no doubt in Zonneveld’s mind though, that Kooij deserves the full backing of a team. “In modern cycling, only Peter Sagan and Tadej Pogacar have racked up so many victories at such a young age,” he concludes. “The fact that Kooij is doing this already, winning again in the Giro, is just unreal. We almost take it for granted — but we shouldn’t. This isn’t normal.”
