The first stage wasn’t too exciting. The weather conditions were good and soon a leading group of four men was created. The sprinter teams put things in order without any problems in the final. Van Poppel tuned his sprint to Deceuninck-QuickStep, but their sprint didn’t turn out as planned.

“Because eight riders created a small gap in the last hundreds of meters”, sports director Grischa Niermann said. “If the predictions are right, there will be three more sprint opportunities this week. They suit Danny better. Everything is going well for us and we are preparing for tomorrow. Then a long, exhausting stage to Lake Tahoe awaits us."