Julius van den Berg sprints into the Vuelta’s King of the Mountains jersey

He sprinted out of the break in front of tens of thousands of cheering Dutch fans to win today’s points on top of the Amerongse Berg.

It’s a climb that Julius knows well. When Julius looked at the road book for the first road stage of the Vuelta’s three-day Gran Partida a few weeks ago, he got the idea. He’d seen what Magnus Cort did at the Tour’s start in Denmark earlier this summer, and thought he could pull off a similar stunt. Julius’s last name might mean ‘from the mountain’ in Dutch, but he is not a climber. He is here at the Vuelta to help our GC riders get to the front and stay out of the wind. But the Amerongse Berg…

The Netherlands is famously flat, so Dutch bike races seek out every bump in the countryside. The Amerongse Berg is only 1.2-kilometres long at 3.3%. Julius rode over it many times when he was a junior and an espoir. He knew that if he got in the break, he could win the sprint at the top.

But Julius is a teammate first. He’s here at the Vuelta to do a job and didn’t quite know if he should speak up. This morning in the bus, his sports director Juanma Gárate came to him with an idea—the same idea that Julius had been pondering for weeks.

This was his shot—he had to get in the break. He is very happy that it worked out.

“It all went the right way,” he says. “There were so many people next to the road, shouting my name. I was surprised how many people were there to see the race. It is so cool that it is close to home and everybody can come and see it. That the team let me take this opportunity is really cool.”

Julius seized it.

As the wind picked up, the nervous peloton accelerated behind the break and closed the gap down to a few seconds. Julius and his break mates had to give everything to hold them off. At the base of the climb, it was every rider for himself.

“It was hectic,” Julius says. “I know the climb. You have a few tops and everybody was nervous. The first guy sprinted for the first one, and I thought, ‘damn, I need to sprint as well’. You get nervous. Then someone sprinted for the second top, and I thought, ‘oh no, I need to sprint again’, and the third time, I was on the limit and thought, ‘awww, I need to sprint again’, but three times is a charm, eh.”

Julius’s third sprint was the best and he got the points at the summit. His family was there to greet him at the finish, along with thousands of Dutch fans.

Tomorrow, Julius will wear the blue-polka dot jersey during the third stage, which starts and finishes in Breda, after completing a loop through the countryside in Brabant. The course passes through Julius’s hometown of Roosendaal, where his friends and neighbours will certainly be out to cheer. There is one climb en route.

Julius is going for the break.