He first secured a podium visit in the queen stage of the tour, which pushed his GC ranking to the top just behind defending champion
Giovanni Aleotti. Then he secured bronze in the ITT stage held on Tuesday, 15 seconds behind stage winner Aleotii and kept his second position in GC.
“The course of the queen stage was quite straightforward with only the almost 25 kilometers long climb at the end. There the strongest guys would automatically come to the fore. I gave my all during the time trial, which resulted in third place. During the closing stage, the team again did a great job keeping me in front with the technical finish in mind. I managed to finish safely inside the bunch and could step onto the podium as second on GC”, concluded Vanhoucke.