Visma | Lease a Bike faced a tactical choice with Bart Lemmen in the breakaway: "Nothing comes easy here"

"The plan was to be in the break," Bart Lemmen replied to the Eurosport cameras after the stage. "I expected it to take a long time. But nothing comes easy in this race. It was another brutal fight. Like on the other breakaway days, we wanted someone up front. And so Lemmen's attack was 'well-thought-out," as he described it.

"This was an attack with purpose — by being up the road, we had someone to fall back on if the favorites blew the race apart," the Utrecht native said on the team website. "If not, I could go for the stage win myself." But it didn't get that far for Lemmen. It wasn't just racing at the front of the peloton but also in the group of the pink jersey wearer and all the other men in contention for the GC. "We really kept going, but we weren't riding at full speed. And if they go full throttle (in the group of favorites, ed.), it's over in a flash. You can see that. That's why I take it kilometer by kilometer. And I have to be honest; I just saw the numbers... Then you don't overthink; I just make sure I stay at the front of the race."

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And so Visma | Lease a Bike played the Simon Yates card, who managed to hold his own against all the attacks from INEOS Grenadiers, among others. "In the end, we decided I would drop back to help Simon." On the plateau, Lemmen, who had fallen back, did the necessary work for his British leader.

Yates eventually finished in the group with his main rivals, meaning that Lemmen and his team's plan was successful. "We’ve taken another step forward in the GC. Personally, I had a good day, though at one point, I had to switch off my brain and just focus on turning the pedals."