Marking the halfway point of the stage race, Wednesday saw the peloton take on a short 124 kilometre route; which featured two laps of a challenging circuit in the finale, involving two brutally steep climbs. After multiple atacks at the head of the race, Ganna eventually forged on as a lone breakaway rider. Back in the bunch, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL grouped around each other well, keeping finisher Romain Bardet safe. Strong riding on the flat from Romain Combaud, Oliver Peace and Robbe Dhondt saw Ganna’s advantage diminish, before Chris Hamilton then Gijs Leemreize took over on the climbs; all while Bardet kept in a good position. On the third last climb, Leemreize drastically increased the pace and Bardet put in a probing acceleration but when he saw the bunch were keeping him close at around 20 metres, then he returned to the group. At that point the pace went out and the eventual race winning move went clear. For the remainder of the stage Bardet rode a smart race, staying attentive towards the front of the peloton but letting others who needed to, do the work. Coming into the sprint, the fight for the final podium place was on with Bardet getting up to take fourth place on the stage; a good result after some strong teamwork throughout the day.
Speaking after the stage Bardet expressed: “It was a tough day out here with quite some bad and challenging weather conditions throughout the stage. We decided to ride and lead the bunch for most of the day, to try and make it hard. In the end, I couldn’t make any big difference, but I’m really happy with the team effort we did. We will go for it again tomorrow.”
