Primoz Roglic showed himself combative prior to the stage. “I am grateful that I can be at the start. We will continue to give everything as long as we are in the Tour de France. It’s a matter of getting through the next few days. For now it makes no sense to look at the time loss”, the heavily injured Roglic said.

The peloton made a statement after the start by squeezing the brakes and putting their feet on the ground. The riders tried to draw attention to the safety of the race. After the stage had resumed, Brent Van Moer and Pierre-Luc Périchon got away from the rest. The former was only caught up at 200 metres from the finish by an attacking peloton. Mark Cavendish took the win in Fougères.

Wout van Aert did not sprint. The Belgian will focus on tomorrow’s time trial. “Today I didn’t interfere with the bunch sprint. Fortunately, we came through this stage well as a team. The focus for me is on tomorrow’s time trial. The main goal is to compete for the day’s victory. Whether I can also have a go at yellow, remains to be seen. I am looking forward to it. I will go full speed ahead.”

“Under the circumstances, we got through today’s stage well”, explained sports director Grischa Niermann. “The goal was to arrive at the finish line safely and without losing time. Though in this case good is relative of course. The riders were suffering from the after-effects of the crashes of the last few days. Fortunately, today’s stage and route lent itself to saving strength somewhat with regard to what’s to come.”

“In tomorrow’s time trial we will go for nothing less than the win”, an ambitious Niermann added. “We have a number of good time trialists at the start. Wout will be our main man. The goal is to go for the day’s victory. Hopefully we can also try to get the yellow. Tony Martin has had a lot of physical damage in recent days. He will stay away from the battle for the first places. We hope that Primoz will be able to put power to the pedals on his time trial bike.”