Defeated Lidl-Trek considered abandoning chase of Van der Poel: "Maybe we should have"

“It was a pretty tough stage, I have to say,” said green jersey Milan after the finish. “It was probably a bit crazy to let two such strong riders go. We tried to keep them as close as possible. We really fought for that,” he said, referring to the duo time trial of Van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert.

“We had to use all our riders to get me into a good position in the final kilometers because of the crosswinds,” the Italian continued. “So it was a really hard sprint. That second place… of course I expected something better, but sometimes that’s just how it is,” said Saturday's winner.

Because of his long breakaway, Van der Poel picked up more points for the green jersey on Sunday. “Of course I was worried about that. Letting someone that strong go wasn’t a good idea… and we saw the result. We took full responsibility for the chase, and in the end, we did get him. Merlier also gained back a lot of points with his win, so we’ll keep fighting as hard as we can for the green jersey,” Milan concluded.

Team director Steven de Jongh shared his thoughts afterward with NOS. “We thought we would get help, but we didn't.” As the gap to the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo kept growing, he added, “Then you have to start helping. One team alone can’t do it, and then it’s tough to find allies. A lot of teams didn’t want to help. And I understand that too,” said the Dutchman.

“We started chasing because we thought they wouldn’t stop (after the intermediate sprint, ed.),” De Jongh continued. “The gap grew quickly, and after that sprint we still expected some help, but it didn’t come. We thought we could regain control with the peloton, especially since it was the last real sprint opportunity for many sprinters. They (Milan and Merlier, ed.) launched at the same time, but Merlier had more speed. We would have liked to win this stage.”

They didn’t, but De Jongh still admired Van der Poel’s effort. “I’ve never seen anything like that. We were close to giving up the chase, and leave it to Van der Poel… that definitely crossed our minds, and maybe we should have done it.”