Well, the timing with my sprint preparer Tom Veelers didn’t work out all today – he came to the finish before me! He was next-to-last and I was the last one on the stage. ;-) Oh well someone has to be last. Since I knew that I had enough time, I let the grupetto go on without me and arrived a minute later.

The mountains and I will never be friends. For me it is all or nothing here. You can’t save much strength. Tomorrow we have to suffer again and survive the Tourmalet and then Paris is nearly in sight.

The team thoroughly enjoyed the visit from former Bayern München captain Mark van Bommel and the ex-coach of the Dutch national football team Bert van Marwijk. They accompanied us on the stage today and showed themselves very respectful of our sport.

Photos: roth-foto.de (1), private (1)