After the first mountaintop finish in the Tour de France, Team LottoNL-Jumbo is represented in the top ten overall by two riders. Both team leader Steven Kruijswijk and Primoz Roglic finished the very tough Alps stage among the favourites. Roglic finished eleventh, Kruijswijk twelfth. In the overall ranking, they have climbed up to the fifth and sixth place respectively.

In the relatively short mountain stage from Albertville to La Rosiere, with four tough Alp climbs along the way, the pace was very high from the start. Kruijswijk and Roglic were assisted throughout the day by Robert Gesink, Paul Martens and Antwan Tolhoek, who positioned his team captain in front of the peloton at the ascent of the final climb. Kruijswijk and Roglic eventually finished at about one minute from stage winner Geraint Thomas.

Team LottoNL-Jumbo leader Steven Kruijswijk is pleased that he has done well with respect to the overall ranking. “We lost time on Thomas, Froome and Dumoulin, but we didn’t lose time on some of the others. And on some we actually gained time. In that respect, we’re doing good. In the end, I was a bit struggling to hang on, which cost some energy, but all in all it was a great day for us. I think I showed today that my shape is good and with Primoz in a good shape as well, we can hopefully continue this way in the coming stages. The team is really strong. Antwan was his weight worth in gold in the final today.”

Roglic was also optimistic about the outcome of today’s stage. “It could have been a lot worse. I didn’t have the best legs today, but with Steven I continued to keep fighting to the finish. The most important thing now is to stay focused. We’ll take it day by day. We’ll keep fighting.”

Just like yesterday, Dylan Groenewegen, Timo Roosen and Amund Jansen finished the stage in a good way and within the time limit.