Martijn Keizer finished eighth in the fourth stage of the Tour of Denmark this afternoon. The Team LottoNL-Jumbo rider lost 29 seconds to stage winner Mads Würtz Schmidt in the time trial. Jos van Emden started his race sick and vomited halfway through his race, still finishing 20th.

“We were counting on better results than this,” Sports Director Jan Boven said. “Jos van Emden was already a little bit sick last night and woke up in bad shape. It went quite well during his warm up and he started his time trial strongly as well, but after around six kilometres, he had to vomit. He lost his focus afterwards, clearly.

“Martijn Keizer was good, but not superb. Something like that could happen after a training camp at altitude. He went on a training camp with another goal in mind. He wants to be good in the Vuelta, so this result is about making choices, as well.”

Not satisfied

Keizer was still disappointed after his race. “I wanted more than this eighth place,” he added. “I wasn’t superb yesterday already so I could have seen it coming a little bit. It’s not bad, but I’m not satisfied at all. I’m preparing for the Vuelta, but I thought that I would be able to come closer to the top three today.”