Groenewegen’s first win shows why the Rockets are cycling’s team to watch in 2026

Unibet Rose Rockets won with a proper sprint train. Karsten Larsen Feldmann kept Groenewegen moving forward, Elmar Reinders delivered him under the flamme rouge, and Groenewegen finished it cleanly ahead of supertalent Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step). It was precise, almost conservative, which is not a word typically attached to this team.

For years, the Rockets have been defined by how they arrived in the sport, through a YouTube channel, a fanbase, and Bas Tietema’s insistence that cycling could be built around community as much as results. The risk with any project like that is that the story stays ahead of the substance. The Valencia sprint suggested the gap is closing.

Groenewegen’s signing was already a statement. At 32, with six Tour de France stage wins, he did not join to hide. 

He joined because he wanted a reset and he knows that he is being brought in as the face of the project. “That pressure is there, but that is allowed,” he said to Wielerflits. “I like it.” 

The Rockets could have left it at signing Groenewegen. Instead, they have built a very deliberate structure around him. 

A choice worth praising, because focus is a prerequisite for success. Sprinting is also the most efficient place to invest if you want top level wins without top level spending. Building a lead out train is far cheaper than assembling a Grand Tour mountain squad and the wider performance infrastructure that comes with it, from nutrition programmes to altitude camps and everything in between.

And the Rockets would not be the Rockets if they approached that sprint project in a conventional way.

Rather than simply assembling a lead-out and hoping repetition would do the rest, they brought in Marcel Kittel, a former rival of Groenewegen and one of the most successful sprinters of his generation. 

Not as a symbolic hire, but as a hands-on presence who has seen everything in the sprint game and has the intelligence to pass it on.

Groenewegen has already described how closely Kittel is involved: “For me it is quite easy because the line with Marcel is very short,” he said to Wielerflits. “We call each other almost every week to go through things, about equipment, about meetings, or focused sprint sessions.”

Given how seriously Kittel is taking the job and the clean way the Valencia sprint was built, the Rockets have every reason to trust the process they have committed to.

For a long time, it was easy to mistake the Rockets for a story first and a team second. The win of Groenewegen suggests that order is starting to change.

The quiet significance of this win is that it did not feel like a one-off. Not just a fast rider doing fast rider things, but a team with roles, timing, and clarity. That is what changes the perception of a project and Bas Tietema’s approach becomes more than branding. 

If you can create attention first, you buy yourself time. If you can then use that time to build structure, you buy yourself credibility. They will be judged by what comes next, in the Belgian sprint classics, against deeper fields, and perhaps at the Tour de France if they are granted a wildcard.

But the direction is clear. The Rockets are no longer interesting only because of where they came from, but because of where they are heading.