Visma | Lease a Bike remain below expectations at Tour de Romandie: "Once again we did everything we could"

Without a designated leader, Visma | Lease a Bike had to employ somewhat guerilla tactics to put themselves in a position where the Dutch could fight for a note-worthy result at Tour de Romandie's queen stage to Leysin.

Thus Bart Lemmen placed himself in the breakaway of the day with idea of hopefully staying away for as long as possible, however fierce pace in the peloton put a quick end to these futile attempts to change the tides of the stage 4.

Then it was a chance for young Norwegian Johannes Staune-Mittet to test his legs against some of the best climbers of the professional peloton, yet when the peloton turned left in Le Sépey and the pace went up, Staune-Mittet could no longer keep up and crossed the line in 24th, 2:40 behind winner Richard Carapaz.

"Once again we did everything we could," sports director Grischa Niermann said in press release. "It didn't pay off today in the form of a result. Our plan was to be in the breakaway. That worked out. Other teams overwhelmingly wanted to make the race hard, so it quickly became a tough job. Johannes rode a very strong race today. He fought to the line, but he too came up short against the competition."