Tom Dumoulin: I hated cycling for 50 kilometres
Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) had high expectations for the cobbled stage to Roubaix in the Tour de France, but the Dutch rider's hopes of putting time into his rivals were not realised. The 2017 Giro d'Italia champion mostly blamed the headwind and the race circumstances for that.
"I'm mainly disappointed. I wanted to come out of this stage as the winner, maybe not the stage winner but certainly by gaining time," Dumoulin said while warming down on the rollers at the Sunweb team bus in Roubaix. "That didn't work out. This didn't turn out to be the stage I hoped it would be.
"It was really hard but the headwind made it difficult. The GC riders were keeping an eye on each other. The headwind is partly to blame. The racing style is different compared to Paris-Roubaix, too. I had really good legs but it was super hard to make the difference here,"
Dumoulin was asked if these stages weren't too dangerous, especially since there weren't major time gaps between the overall contenders. "Then you can cancel all stages, even the mountain stages because things can go wrong out there too. No, I like this."
Before the race, Dumoulin said that he looked forward with excitement and fear to the Roubaix stage. When asked if the Roubaix stage lived up to his expectations, Dumoulin shook his head. "No, the sensations were as good as anticipated but I hoped that there would be gaps between the GC riders and that didn't happen.
"On one sector [sector 5] I went full gas, giving everything I had. There were gaps everywhere in the peloton. We were ahead with a nice group. It was nice to see but the headwind makes it really hard to push through. Then everybody starts thinking and the pace drops. I'm disappointed about that.
It was like heading to a bunch sprint for 50 kilometres
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