Crashes and injuries are at the forefront of discussion in professional cycling in 2024 and DSM Firmenich-PostNL are one of the worst affected teams.
Talented British riders Max Poole and Oscar Onley are the latest DSM-Firmenich PostNL injured in crashes. A third broken collarbone in eight months for Onley at the Amstel Gold Race and a fractured elbow for Poole at Tirreno-Adriatico have heavily disrupted their respective goals at the Ardennes Classics and Giro d’Italia.
“They’re both recovering, we’re in good contact with them. Both are disappointed they’re missing more of the season,” said DSM coach Matt Winston to Cyclingnews at the Tour of the Alps.
“They certainly don’t like to be watching from the sidelines but we’re confident that we can make a good plan for them both and hopefully they’ll both have a really good second part of the year.
Poole, who impressed throughout his neo-pro season in 2023, was scheduled to make his debut at next month's Giro d’Italia but that has been plunged into doubt with Winston saying a decision was likely to be made in the coming week.
“He’s still recovering,” Winston said. “Obviously, the final week is key in the Giro and it is still open for discussion at the moment whether that last spot will be Max or someone else.”
Sprinter and team leader Fabio Jakobsen has struggled in the sprints and has still to win a race this season. Onley won on Willunga Hill at the Tour Down Under but the team’s only other victory of 2024 was the AlUla Tour by Casper van Uden.
Romain Bardet’s strong riding at the Tour of the Alps helped lift morale at DSM-Firmenich PostNL. The French rider finished fourth on the rain-soaked third stage around Schwaz in Austria and moved up to fifth overall, with the decisive mountain stages still to come.
Despite the recent controversies about safety, Winston laid no blame, admitting that it has simply been a run of rotten fortune and freakish incidents that have hit the DSM-Firmenich PostNL team.
“It’s just a bit of bad luck, to be honest, Max’s crash in Tirreno was just a pure one in one hundred chance,” the Brit said.
“He hit a pothole and it was a big crash, a lot of guys came down on a straight road. There’s not really anything you can do there.
“Oscar’s [Onley] crash on Sunday is just one of those scenarios, wrong place, wrong time. Not his fault but he’s caught up in it and unfortunately the collarbone broke.”
Onley posted a picture of his x-ray on Instagram with the caption “How many fckn times”, frustrated after he had just built back from the same injury suffered in Australia at the start of the season. But Winston was confident the British pair could return to their best before the season is up, with no reason to panic despite the far-from-ideal situation.
“We’re a team that have had our fair share of injuries over the past few years and it's all about staying calm in those moments and making a plan and looking forward to what you want to do in the coming months,” Winston said.
“We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again and Oscar [and Poole] will be back racing in a good way before the end of the year.”
