Itzulia Basque Country got underway on Monday afternoon with a hilly and technical ten kilometre course starting and finishing in the town of Irun. The stage could be split into two halves with the opening section featuring the majority of the climbing, before the latter half seeing high speeds and plenty of turns. The Team dsm-firmenich PostNL squad mostly set out to give it their best on the course, with Oscar Onley, Enzo Leijnse, Martijn Tusveld, Warren Barguil and Gijs Leemreize all finishing within five seconds of each other, with Onley setting the team’s best time of 13 minutes and 17 seconds. While Emils Liepins aimed to get round in a good way with tomorrow’s possible sprint stage, and Romain Combaud had to battle a late rain storm so didn’t take any risks.
Speaking after the stage Onley expressed: “It was a punchy time trial to start the week here in Itzulia. I felt quite good but unfortunately lost quite a bit of time. It motivates me to try and improve in this area over the coming months. We’re looking forward to the rest of the week and taking opportunities where we can in this strong field.”