In the tough stage to Calpe, Team Jumbo-Visma showed plenty of fighting spirit. After the early breakaway was reeled in, Roglic gathered important bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint. On the final climb, George Bennett was one of the first to attack. He was later joined by his teammate Roglic. Just before the top the decisive move of six with Roglic broke clear. The six eventually sprinted for the stage win and gained 37 seconds on the chasing group containing the red jersey as well as Bennett. Unfortunately Steven Kruijswijk suffered from pain in his knee after yesterday's crash and lost 1’43”.

"It was really tough today," Roglic explained. “In the end, I no longer had the legs to go for the stage victory. Today, I didn't really suffer from the crash and I am very pleased with this third place and with the time we have taken back. After the Giro d’Italia I haven't done a race apart from the national championship, so I didn’t know how my shape would be. This is encouraging and certainly gives confidence."

Sports director Grischa Niermann has seen that his leader has done some good business in the GC. “It was a difficult stage today and the pace was very fast. As expected, the course exploded on the last climb. Many had thought that it was going to end in a sprint with a small group, but the stage was tougher than expected. As a team we rode very well all day and George and Primoz were really good. Primoz was also motivated after yesterday. We can say that we are back in the game after yesterday's disappointment.”

On the other hand Niermann saw Kruijswijk losing valuable time. “Steven had a bad day today and had a lot of problems with his knee. He crashed hard into the barriers yesterday. Of course we would have liked Steven to have been in a different position after two days, but his GC certainly isn't over yet," Niermann concluded.