{"id":803091,"date":"2026-07-15T08:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/803091\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:11:14","slug":"tour-de-france-sprinters-diaries-can-merlier-be-beaten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/803091\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France sprinter’s diaries: Can Merlier be beaten?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Merlier<\/a> is making a big impression at this Tour de France, but his stage win in Bergerac<\/a> on day eight really left everyone speechless. He managed to win at an incredible speed. Is the Belgian unbeatable, then? Ahead of stages 11 and 12 on Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 July, IDL Pro Cycling asked Mike Teunissen<\/a> of XDS Astana and S\u00f8ren Waerenskjold of Uno-X for their thoughts.The sprinters had to wait a long time for their first opportunity in this Tour de France. It wasn\u2019t until day five that they were presented with a virtually flat stage, and that\u2019s when Olav Kooij<\/a> struck for Decathlon<\/a>. On days seven and eight, there were two opportunities in a row<\/a>, and both went to Merlier, who appeared to be in particularly dominant form. On the brutal stage 10,Merlier had a hard day in the mid-mountains after the first rest day. Attacks from early breakaway hopefuls saw the sprinter dropped almost right away. Things went from bad to worse and UAE went to work, with Merlier’s deficit growing and growing through the 166km stage. Merlier just finished within the time cut<\/a> thanks to his Quick-Step team. But how much will this effort cost him on stage 11?Another rider who excels in those sprints: Max Kanter<\/a>. The German rider from Astana finished second on day five and came in fourth and ninth in stages seven and eight, respectively. In addition to his strong sprint, the German owed this success to the excellent work of his teammate Teunissen. The Dutchman set up his team leader perfectly in those bunch sprints.<\/p>\n

Before the start of Stage 10, IDL Pro Cycling spoke with the friendly Teunissen, who immediately said he was feeling \u201cpretty good.\u201d But: \u201cThe problem is that most of the guys can take it easy on a flat stage. Then we still have to work hard. These are really nine days where you have to give it your all. It\u2019s actually going pretty well,\u201d repeated the 33-year-old veteran.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"teunissen-kooij\"\/Teunissen and Astana stick to their own sprint strategy at the Tour de France<\/p>\n

Still, Teunissen also noticed that it was Merlier who managed to win on two occasions. Can the Belgian be beaten, and if so, how? \u201cWe\u2019ll have to hope he\u2019s too far back,\u201d Teunissen said. \u201cBasically, he\u2019s just the fastest. He almost always is, but a Tour sprint still has to be raced. We can\u2019t take him too much into account, because basically, he\u2019s just faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

So at Astana, they\u2019re mainly focusing on their own plan. \u201cAnd then we just try to set up Max as well as possible. That\u2019s going well. Then we just have to hope the gap is as small as possible.\u201d That\u2019s already been evident a few times. \u201cWe\u2019ve had three sprints so far, and we\u2019ve come up with a plan for each one. Twice, we\u2019ve executed it perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an incredibly strong field of sprinters\u2014and that\u2019s certainly the case in this Tour de France\u2014that\u2019s not enough for a stage win, though. \u201cThere are forty riders here trying to do that. We\u2019re the ones who do it every time, so that\u2019s nice. It really boosts morale,\u201d said a nonetheless satisfied-looking Teunissen.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman was therefore enthusiastic about his German teammate. \u201cYou can see that he\u2019s putting in some good sprints. We\u2019ve been working on this for months, so it\u2019s great to see it pay off. Of course, it would be absolutely fantastic if that could lead to a stage victory,\u201d the Dutchman concluded hopefully.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"soren-waerenskjold\"\/Waerenskjold is candid about Merlier in the Tour de France: ‘I need a little luck’<\/p>\n

S\u00f8ren Waerenskjold also came very close to a victory in a bunch sprint during this Tour de France. The Norwegian rider from Uno-X finished second behind Merlier in Bordeaux. So, S\u00f8ren: can he be beaten? \u201cI think that if anyone could beat him\u2026 I think Kooij has a lot of speed, too. He didn\u2019t really show it in Stage 8, but I think Olav and Merlier are the fastest sprinters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Norwegian\u2019s view, Merlier is just a bit faster. But as for winning himself? \u201cI\u2019ll need a bit of luck. Hopefully they\u2019ll get boxed in at some point,\u201d the 2025 Omloop winner admitted honestly. At Uno-X, they take the same approach to the sprints as Astana. \u201cYou just have to focus on your own sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because, as Waerenskjold knew all too well: \u201cYou can\u2019t follow his wheel, because it\u2019s not easy to get past him then. “I think you just have to focus on your own sprint and then hope he makes a mistake,” he said. So the Norwegian will just have to hope that luck is on his side at least once on Wednesday or Thursday.<\/p>\n

Video: Tim Merlier just finishes within the Tour de France time cut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Merlier is making a big impression at this Tour de France, but his stage win in Bergerac…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,282638,214381,71100,82,135436,262636],"class_list":["post-803091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-max-kanter","tag-mike-teunissen","tag-olav-kooij","tag-sports","tag-tim-merlier","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}