Realistic assessment of Tour situation from Merijn Zeeman: "Yellow is not going to happen and then you have to try to finish as high as possible"

With Wilco Kelderman and Matteo Jorgenson in the leading group, Team Visma | Lease a Bike had everything prepared for the anticipated Jonas Vingegaard strike. However that never happened and instead it was the yellow jersey who took the stage away from Vingegaard' American teammate.

"No, there was no cure for it," sports director Merijn Zeeman was honest at NOS. "Simply unheard of. Hats off to him. Our team was fantastic. We fought for what we were worth. Matteo was only caught late. Too bad, really too bad. Jonas felt good, but there was nothing you could do about it."

The team had sketched out all sorts of scenarios beforehand. "Defensive, offensive, and also fighting for the day's victory. Wilco and Matteo could get ahead thanks to the work of Wout and Christophe. If Jonas felt really good, we would have someone up front. If he felt less good, we would also have someone in defense. A fantastic team performance."

Vingegaard made no attempt to make things difficult for Pogacar and on Isola 2000 he did not even try to follow the Slovenian's attack, who easily recovered the 4 minutes to catch back to the leading group. "Jonas' form is very good, but there is one who is much better. We calculated how much Matteo needed. 4.5 minutes at the foot. The calculation was correct, but at the foot he only had a little more than four."

Vingegaard's gap to Pogacar is now over 5 minutes and it seems that all hope is lost already. "There are still two days. It was a status quo between Jonas and Remco. Yellow is not going to happen and then you have to try to finish as high as possible. I am especially proud. It would have been nice if he had won the stage, but it just wasn't in the cards."