Dylan Groenewegen enjoys redemption to win stage three of Tour de France

A day after the QuickStep rider Fabio Jakobsen completed his long comeback from life-threatening injuries to win stage two of the Tour de France, the rider widely blamed for the infamous crash in the 2020 Tour of Poland, Dylan Groenewegen, had his own moment of redemption, the Team BikeExchange rider winning stage three from Vejle to Sønderborg.

As the Tour’s exuberant sojourn in Denmark came to an end, so did the mental torture of Groenewegen, vilified over the Jakobsen crash to the extent that at one point he even needed police protection after receiving death threats. In another chaotic sprint finish, Jakobsen, and overall Tour leader, Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) fought for supremacy, but neither were in full control of the sprint as the peloton closed on the line and Groenewegen’s speed edged him ahead of Van Aert.

Groenewegen’s journey back from his involvement in Jakobsen’s life-threatening crash in the Tour of Poland has been long and tortuous. Plagued by guilt over his role in Jakobsen’s injuries, he doubted that he would ever regain the competitive instincts that had once made him one of the sport’s fastest sprinters.

“It was a long way [back],” Groenewegen said after his win. “I want to say thanks to my team, to my family and friends. It’s beautiful. Mentally, but not physically, it was hard [coming back]. This is for my wife and my son.”

The 2020 crash in a downhill sprint left Jakobsen in an induced coma, with multiple severe cranial and facial injuries. “I kept losing consciousness, slipping in and out,” he recalled after he recovered. “Every time I thought: ‘This is it, now I am going to die.’ This happened 50 maybe, 100 times. I didn’t die, but it felt like that. These were the longest days of my life.”

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