Photo Credit: Cor Vos

After yesterday’s tough first stage in the mountains, it was déjà-vu for the riders with a brutally hard day in the saddle that featured numerous difficult ascents and the race’s first summit finish at Tignes. It wasn’t only the parcours that made the afternoon tough, but grizzly weather conditions including heavy rain and cooler temperatures, followed the race all throughout the stage.

From the start a fierce tempo was set with no break allowed to form until the first categorised climb of the day. The pace stayed high for the next 30 kilometres as the peloton split to pieces, with Mark Donovan and Søren Kragh Andersen riding towards the fore. Kragh Andersen made it into a large front group of 43 riders but with more attacks on the next ascent, a smaller splinter group forged ahead. With the tough climbs continuing the team rode within their limits as much as they could, finding each other in the many groups out on the road, trying to conserve as much energy as possible while battling the poor conditions and the challenging terrain, all while trying to make it safely within the time cut; a tough task. Crossing the line later in the stage in Tignes, all of the team made it home within the time limit ahead of tomorrow’s well-deserved rest day.

Team DSM coach Luke Roberts said: “It was a really tough day today, with a shortish mountain stage, but it was really intense all day. There was attacking from the beginning and the peloton basically shattered and there were several groups over the parcours. Some were racing for results still, while others were just trying to survive and get to the finish. Today our guys were the latter; more in survival mode. Just trying to get to the finish today was quite brutal out there. It was really cold and wet all day, with some really hard climbs, particularly on the Col du Pré in the middle of the stage. We did quite a good job today and the guys found each other in a group and supported each other well to get through the day. We’ll definitely look forward to a well-deserved rest day tomorrow. Then we’ll hopefully bounce back, ready to chase results again after the rest day.”