Rund um Köln 2026 preview: Kooij, Girmay, and De Lie headline Germany’s biggest spring one-day sprint

Rund um Köln is never a pure flat sprint, but it is often still fast enough that the best resilient sprinters hold the advantage. The key question is whether the climbs do enough damage to remove the pure speed specialists before the line.

Olav Kooij, Biniam Girmay, and Arnaud De Lie all fit that middle ground well, while Mads Pedersen and Milan Fretin become more dangerous as the race gets harder and more chaotic. The winning rider will probably need both climbing survival and a clean final burst.