Team LottoNL-Jumbo has finished as twelfth in the team time trial of the Tour de France at 1"15 of BMC Pro Cycling.

“You always hope for a surprise, but we also have to be realistic”, high performance manager Mathieu Heijboer said. “For today, it was the most important that everyone would perform as well as possible. And that the stronger guys wouldn’t demand too much from the less strong guys. That worked out quite well, but we started a little too conservative, so we lost a bit more time than we had calculated beforehand. What I learned today is that the differences are relatively small.”

Team captain Steven Kruijswijk concurred with Heijboer. “We started cautiously to not tear the team apart immediately. We then accelerated in the second part. Unfortunately, we didn’t make up for the time we lost in the first part. All in all, I think we’ve made the most of it. I felt very good myself. I was able to ride a steady pace and I could take my turns. The shape is good and I hope to get through this week unharmed.”

Robert Gesink was one of the team’s engines with Kruijswijk and Primoz Roglic. The resident of Varsseveld thought that they had gotten the most out of the team time trial. “We’ve given everything we have. We started cautiously to keep the team together. During the second part we were very strong. It’s now important to take the positives from this and look ahead to the coming days.”