Ten Dam and Oomen saw hyper-focused Vingegaard, but criticize Quick-Step’s tactics: "It breaks my heart"

Ten Dam saw exactly what he expected: a Visma | Lease a Bike team that was hyper-focused in the windy finale. “Visma has never missed the split,” he said on his Live Slow Ride Fast podcast. “Tadej didn’t either, but he was less well surrounded. He had Wellens with him, who was worth his weight in gold today. But behind that, you started to wonder… where’s Merlier, and where’s Evenepoel with his golden helmet?”

Oomen agreed: the Killer Bees, led by team leader Vingegaard, were always right at the front. “Jonas really stood out. He wasn’t afraid at all to sit at the front himself and take the wind,” Oomen observed. Even when their windbreaker Edoardo Affini dropped off, the Dane stayed up front. “Jonas had almost no doubts and just kept riding on the front line without a bodyguard. He was switched on for four hours and fifteen minutes straight. I think he just treated it like a one-day race.”

Visma | Lease a Bike, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and Alpecin-Deceuninck all did what they needed to do and made it into the front group. But Remco Evenepoel and his team were wrong. “What breaks my heart is that Quick-Step used to be the team that controlled everything and never missed an echelon, and now they just miss it completely,” lamented Ten Dam. Oomen added that Pascal Eenkhoorn rode well. “But maybe he too fell victim to dozing off or just accepting, ‘ah, it’ll be a sprint.'” Thijs Zonneveld also criticized the Belgian team’s tactics.

No Evenepoel, no Merlier. But there he was: Enric Mas. The Movistar rider managed to make the front split. “For him, it’s an incredible achievement to be up there in that echelon,” said a surprised Sam Oomen. Laurens ten Dam couldn’t help but laugh. “No one would’ve bet on this beforehand, right? There’s 35 guys up there, and Mas is one of them. Then you think, he’s going to get screwed over by that little crash and get dropped anyway. You don’t wish that on him, but then a teammate (Iván Garcia Cortina, ed.) brings him back.”

That crash saw Marijn van der Berg as the biggest victim. The Dutchman from EF Education-EasyPost had a golden opportunity but went down, taking Ben O’Connor with him. Kaden Groves managed to avoid the crash with some acrobatics. “Unbelievable how he saved that,” Ten Dam exclaimed. “I would have flipped over four times there, honestly. Twice he was riding on his front wheel, steering to the right with his rear wheel half a meter in the air. And then he comes back and starts leading out the sprint. Amazing.”

Mathieu van der Poel represented the Netherlands in the front echelon, but there was another Dutchman defending the tricolor: Mike Teunissen, who finished 11th and had time for a quick call with his mates. He explained how an echelon could still form so deep into the finale. “It was super nervous all day, everyone was riding flat out. I think a lot of guys were already pretty wrecked. Visma just put the hammer down for about a kilometer and a half, but that was enough to make the difference.”

The XDS-Astana sprinter may no longer be the fastest, but he can still pack a punch in the sprint. With such a small group, he suddenly had a golden opportunity for an upset. Looking back, he regretted not racing it differently. “When I watch it back, I think: if only I’d been a bit sharper and got right onto Ackermann’s wheel, I could have done something there.”

But against Jasper Philipsen and the Alpecin-Deceuninck train, there was probably little he could do. The 32-year-old Dutchman, who won the first stage of the 2019 Tour, offered the Belgian his support. “The whole team was right on point again. If you see how those guys execute, it’s a great reward for their work. I wish Jasper a really beautiful day tomorrow, I can highly recommend it,” he winked.