Team LottoNL-Jumbo hasn’t played a major role in the short final stage of Paris-Nice. Robert Gesink finished the 110 kilometre long mountainstage in the back of the field. Timo Roosen and Paul Martens did not reach the finish line as they called it a day in deplorable conditions.

Sports-director Frans Maassen indicated that he had hoped that Robert could join the early breakaway, but it wasn’t meant to be. “The GC guys opened the battle quite early and the pace was very high from the start. Robert couldn’t follow. The race was over for us and from that point on it was more important to finish the race in one piece.”

Maassen therefore likes to look back at the beginning of the week, when Dylan Groenewegen won the second stage. “Ultimately, five teams have won a stage here and we are one of them. There was one real sprint and we won it with Dylan. We are very happy about that. The rest of the week we were plagued by illness, so we were down to only three riders quite early in the race. We hoped for Robert, but we know that he doesn’t thrive well in such harsh weather conditions.”