After Brennan's magnificent victory on the second day in Switzerland, Team Visma | Lease a Bike had pinned all their hopes on a new sprint in the second stage. Early in the stage it became clear that a finish with a large group could be ruled out. Led by Remco Evenepoel's men, the pace was high from the start in La Grande Béroche and the peloton split up on the tough climbs.

Brennan was dropped early, Jørgen Nordhagen just missed out on making it to the front group on Chaumont, the final climb of the day As a result, a small group of favorites fought for the victory. The Italian rider Fortunato won today’s stage. “It’s a pity Jørgen just couldn’t catch up, otherwise there might have been a good result”, sports director Maarten Wynants says.

He continues: “But it’s certainly no shame that he just missed the split as a young rider. Especially with the strong field of participants here in Switzerland. The race was incredibly hard today. It soon became clear that we couldn’t sprint with Matthew again. At first, we tried to bring him back through good work by Julien and Menno, but when we saw that the chance of a stage win was out of the question, we decided to save strength for tomorrow.”

The sports director is referring to the third stage on Friday. After another four categorized climbs, the stage could well turn into a sprint. “That will be quite a challenge”, Wynants knows. "The Col du Mollendruz is another big climb right before the finish line. We're going for it again. Unfortunately, we have to do that without Daniel McLay. He didn't feel fit today and had to abandon today’s stage.”