After an early breakaway had already been reeled in before the actual final, the GC teams took matters into their own hands. On the penultimate ascent, Tolhoek was the first to light up the fire and attacked. However, his is attack didn’t last long. On the final climb, Tolhoek worked hard for Oomen but when the favourites attacked, the two Dutch riders couldn’t keep up with the pace. They limited their time loss by riding their own pace in the last kilometres of the stage.

“I really gave everything I had today”, Oomen said. “I just wasn’t good enough to compete with the best. On the penultimate climb, in the last kilometre, I blew myself up a bit. I felt that accelerating was going to be difficult. When the favourites attacked, Antwan and I tried to control the race as much as possible to limit our time loss.”

“It’s great to see that after a long time I can try to go for a good result GC-wise again. The team rode very strong today. Not only Antwan in the final, but also the other guys towards the penultimate climb. I couldn’t have asked for more from them today. It has already been a very difficult week which requires a lot of concentration. I hope I can keep my top ten and I will do everything I can to achieve that. It will certainly not be easy”, Oomen concluded.

Sports director Addy Engels was pleasantly surprised with the performance of his riders. “The fact that Sam finished in the top ten in the stage and is now eighth overall is a great achievement in this field. This is what we hoped to see from Sam in this race. Also because we didn’t know at what level he was with regards to his shape. After a difficult period for him, there were some doubts. This is a confirmation that he is a good rider. It would be nice if we could hold on to this. We’ll see how things will turn out at the end of the week.”