Geraint Thomas kept the yellow jersey lead and LottoNL-Jumbo Jos van Emden remained in seventh place. 

“Today, we made the right choice to wait long,” Groenewegen said. “Robert dropped me off on the wheel of Bouhanni. I wanted to start my sprint and then I saw it was 450 metres to the finish line. That is a bit far, so I waited." 

“After that, Greipel came up next to me and I saw Kittel sprint from the other side of Greipel. That is a choice you make. We know that everything needs to be perfect to win and you must have a little bit of luck. I think that will come.”

Tom Leezer fell at 30 kilometres from the finish line in a big pile up. Because of that he was not able to take his position in the sprint train for Groenewegen.

“Immediately, I felt a lot of pain on my knee and my lower leg, but that is better now,” Leezer said. “The pain stopped me from riding, even though my bike was broken as well."

“I could not properly move my right leg. The Tour doctor looked at my leg and saw it was not broken. I continued riding with my left leg. Luckily, after a while the pain decreased. After the finish, they X-rayed it and it showed I did not have any fractures.” 

“We started today’s stage full confidence, as if nothing happened yesterday,” Sports Director Nico said looking back after three riders crashed in the stage one time trial. “In the meeting we had this morning, we also said that." 

“With a good time trial, it was maybe possible for Primoz to take the yellow jersey after stage three or five. That is not possible anymore. So now we are aiming for our next goal."

“We started the Tour with the conviction we could compete for the stage win every day. We still have that conviction. Tomorrow, the finish is uphill. We have guys that can compete there, like Primoz and Robert.”