Saturday started with the news that Romain Bardet wouldn’t take part in the stage per the team’s concussion protocol, after showing mild symptoms of concussion in the evening on Friday as a result of his crash. That meant the team were down to five ahead of the start of the day but everyone was motivated for a strong showing. A day that potentially could have went to the break, Kevin Vermarke showed some strong legs in the beginning of the day to make several attacks and groups which were all ultimately brought back, before the final breakaway went clear. In the bunch the team re-grouped and focused on supporting Max Poole ahead of the mountain-top finish. However, more misfortune befell the team as Poole was involved in a crash and as a result abandoned the race. Once again the team regrouped and supported Vermaerke as best as possible, who then gave it his all on the final climb where he pushed all the way to the line.
After the stage Vermaerke said: “It was a pretty unlucky day for us as a team today. Romain didn’t start after his crash yesterday, then today we lost Max in a crash about halfway through the stage where Chris also went down pretty hard. That then changed our game plan for the day quite a bit. I tried to save energy and focus on the final but I had spent a lot of energy jumping for the breakaway in the beginning of the stage so I just had to ride at my own pace to the finish. It’s a day to forget for us but tomorrow we have one more chance in the sprint with Casper and we’ll go all-in for that.”