The riders had to climb as much as 3,600 altimeters in the short 135.7-kilometre stage. After a few kilometres, twelve riders escaped from the peloton. In different groups, they braved the steep climbs that characterise the roads in the Basque Country.

At about forty kilometres, Roglic attacked and the Slovenian got three riders with him. A little later Vingegaard joined the quartet with several other riders and the last remaining fugitive, Davide Formolo, was caught. Shortly afterwards, Vingegaard, Pello Bilbao, Ion Izagirre and Aleksandr Vlasov broke away, joined in the final kilometres by Marc Soler and Daniel Felipe Martinez. Izagirre won the stage, Vingegaard sprinted to fifth place.

“I felt very strong today”, Vingegaard said. “On the climbs I tried to attack several times. The collaboration with the breakaway riders went well. Unfortunately we were caught by some other riders. In the end, my legs were extremely tired, but I refused to give up early. I tried to move up a few places in the general classification because the goal was to finish on the podium. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, but at least I tried. The way I rode makes me happy. I’m in good shape, which gives hope for the upcoming races.”

After the necessary efforts, Roglic crossed the line at more than two minutes from the day’s winner. “I simply wasn’t good enough to follow the best in the final”, the Slovenian said. “It’s been a tough few days. I gave everything last week. As a team we got some good results. I enjoyed the people along the side.”

Sports director Marc Reef acknowledged that Team Jumbo-Visma started the stage with great ambition. “The intention was to win the race. Today, for the first time this tour, it was a man-to-man fight. With Primoz and Jonas we had two guys who were still doing well in the classification. The goal was to first increase the pace with Primoz. He did that very well. As a result, the best remained and Jonas was among them. The situation seemed perfect as some riders ahead of us in the general classification were behind. Unfortunately, they managed to return. We raced to win. Of course we had hoped for more, but we showed ourselves this week in the Basque Country.”