On 1 July 1989 in Luxembourg, the opening stage of the Tour de France descended into chaos when defending champion Pedro Delgado failed to turn up on time for his prologue slot, losing almost three minutes in the space of just 7.8km after mistiming his warm-up circuit. Three weeks later, as Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon fought out arguably the Tour’s greatest ever climax in Paris, Delgado joined them on the podium, just 3.34 down.
Thymen Arensman’s faulty timekeeping on the shores of Lake Geneva on Tuesday afternoon may not have been as dramatic or as high-stakes as Perico’s Luxembourg lapse 37 years ago, but it underlined how – even in the finely-tuned world of the Tour de France – simple mistakes can be made.
Netcompany Ineos rider Arensman, a winner of two mountain stages at last year’s Tour, was sitting in the white tent which serves as a pre-race area ahead of the start of his time trial effort in Évian-les-Bains when a race official ran over to him, informing him that his 10-second countdown had already begun.
Arensman then jumped on his bike, which was being held by a Netcompany Ineos staff member, who also seemed to be oblivious to the situation, and rushed to the start ramp, shortly after his time had started.
For whatever reason, Thymen Arensman was not yet on the ramp at his scheduled start time and ultimately began today’s Tour de France individual time trial nearly 12 seconds late.#TDF2026 pic.twitter.com/swUXAb9ZtN
— René Bugner (@RNBWCV) July 21, 2026
By the time the Dutchman was ready to roll down the ramp, offering up a scornful wave of his hand as he did so, at least 10 seconds elapsed.
The ignominy of his tardy start was rubbed in even further when Arensman crossed the finish in Thonon-Les-Bains just five seconds down on then-leader Matteo Cattaneo. He ultimately finished the 26.1km time trial in seventh place, 1.47 down on winner Remco Evenepoel.
Speaking outside the Netcompany Ineos team bus in Chambery on Wednesday morning, Arensman’s director of racing Geraint Thomas revealed that the Dutch rider missed his time simply because he was “lost in his own world”.
“He’s taken full responsibility. You should always know who’s off before you. Thymen just got lost in his own world really, in his own focus,” Thomas said.
Of course, the 2018 Tour de France winner is all too familiar with the sensation of making a galling mistake during a Tour de France time trial.
In 2022, Thomas’s Tour campaign – which would end with a podium place in Paris – got off to a less than ideal start, the Ineos leader riding the entire opening time trial wearing a gilet, which he had forgot to take off before the start.
“Mistakes happen,” Thomas said on Wednesday morning. “I did a TT with my gilet on after spending thousands of euros on aero testing and all this and that.
“So mistakes happen. But I think he definitely won’t do that again. It’s unfortunate, but the positive thing to come out of it is that he’s obviously got good legs.”
Thomas may see the funny side of his 2022 time trial mishap now, but at the time the Welshman was understandably furious with himself.
Speaking on his Watts Occurring podcast during that year’s Tour, Thomas told teammate Luke Rowe that his soigneur and his mechanic also failed to notice their rider’s less-than-aero clothing addition.
“Neither of them noticed either. It’s not their fault, I should have known I had a fucking gilet on,” he said.
“After a while I was like ‘ah shit I’ve still got this thermal gilet on’. I was half tempted to take it off.
“Everyone was saying take it easy, don’t lose it all today, but to be honest I wasn’t even bothered about GC today I just wanted to do a good ride. It just got in my head and I rode so slow around these corners. It was so bad.
“I was cornering like my wife — she hasn’t ridden a bike in 12 years. That was the worst first half of a time trial I’ve ever done.
“I was 18 seconds down at the first time check and I was like ‘fuck this’ and just took the pin out and raced it as I normally would. I was still cautious but just flowed a bit better and put the power down on the straights. The legs were really good which makes it worse because I could have been right up there.”
As he said today, mistakes happen.
