Riding his first Tour de France, Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland earned himself a place on the podium yesterday when he took over the mountains jersey in the race. The 28 year old was part of a long distance move which started when his team-mate Lieuwe Westra and Anthony Roux (FDJ) clipped away five kilometres after the start; he, Leonardo Duque (Cofidis) and Adrian Malori (Lampre) joined up two kilometres later to form a leading quintet.
Building a maximum lead of almost twelve minutes, these five contested the King of the Mountains primes at cote de Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie (km 99.5) and the Cote de Bourg d’Ouilly (km 156.5). Hoogerland won the first and finished second behind Roux in the next; that earned him three KOM points and, added to the one he had coming into the stage, moved him above Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) in the polka-dot competition.
“This is the first Tour de France for the team,” he said afterwards. “We’re all happy to be here in this beautiful event so it’s important for us to be in the break to show ourselves. We have, in Feillu, a very good sprinter who can go for the stage wins and for the mountains we have good riders.
“Today it was a goal for me to take this jersey. It was not so easy because the first 35 or 40 kilometres we had to go full gas because we had just one minute on the peloton, then they let us go.”
Hoogerland ended the day one point clear of Roux. Today’s stage to Chateauxroux is completely flat so he’s guaranteed to visit the podium again and get another mountains jersey. Tomorrow is different, though, with four categorised climbs including the finish on Super Besse. He’ll need to battle hard then to remain out front.
“I’ll hold on to this jersey for tomorrow at least – that’s for sure because there are no climbs in the stage,” he said. “But I’ll also need to recover from the two days that I’ve been in the front. I hope I can keep it as long as possible.”
Either way, he vows to be aggressive during the Tour. “I’m not someone who can stay in the group,” he explained. “It’s the Tour de France and every day that you’re in this race, there’s the chance for a lot of good publicity for the team. If you can also take a jersey, then it’s wonderful.”
Although he doesn’t have the same palmares as the big contenders in the race, he has some experience of defending a KOM jersey. He won that classification in last year’s Tour of Poland. Hoogerland was also twelfth in the 2009 Vuelta a España, which was his Grand Tour debut.