In the spirit of fair play, Team LottoNL-Jumbo called Tirreno-Adriatico race organiser RCS Sport to report that it incorrectly clocked Tom Leezer in the final time trial stage today. It has placed him as fifth, but his time was incorrectly fast.

Sports Director Jan Boven timed a ride much slower than the time RCS Sport reported for the stage. Fabian Cancellara (Trek - Segafredo) won the time trial in San Benedetto del Tronto and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team) retained the overall lead.

“I followed Tom during his time trial and I measured a time that was 20 seconds slower than Maarten Tjallingii’s,” sports director Jan Boven said. “Because we want the sport to be as fair as possible, we called the jury to say that the result was incorrect.”

Sprint lead-out

The results were not up to par in the other stages, either. “Everyone in the team has a good physical level,” Boven continued. “But it’s all about the results in the end, and we didn’t deliver them this week. We noticed that our sprint lead-out didn’t develop since the races in Qatar and Oman. We’re upset with that, but it gives us new motivation. It’s all about confidence and instinct.”

Roglic

Primoz Roglic’s development as a classification rider satisfied Boven. “Primoz is a positive guy who wants to work hard. He has to take some steps, as well, but he’s able to do that. He is studious and clever. We didn’t see his potential this week because the mountain stage was cancelled due to weather.

“That was a good decision in our opinion, by the way, because it was about the riders’ safety. It looks like Primoz is healthy and fit, and he always was in the right position in the race. Now, he has to learn to perform when at the sharp-end of the race.”