Gijs Leemreize climbs to 6th at Vuelta after another strong day in the break for the team

Looking to continue their good run of results at the Vuelta after third and second place finishes in the previous stages with Max Poole, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL once again set their sights towards the breakaway on Friday afternoon. A fast start saw a flurry of moves but a large group managed to escape quite quickly with Julius van den Berg and Enzo Leijnse initially present in it, before Gijs Leemreize jumped across in a counter attack; meaning the team had three representatives in the front group of 23.

With no GC threat up the road and no willingness to chase from the peloton, the gap quickly expanded to north of ten minutes and once again it became clear the break would fight it out for the win. Strong support from Leijnse and Van den Berg saw Leemreize come into the final climbs as fresh as possible, where he rode smartly to conserve energy and make it into the new front group of eight that started the penultimate climb together. Approaching the top of the summit a strong pace was set and Leemreize just had to let go of the wheels, riding at his own tempo as to not go into the red. From there, he completed what was almost a 20 kilometre individual time trial along the valley roads and up the steep final climb where he would ultimately go on to take a strong sixth place come the end of the day.

Leemreize said: “It was really fast from the start today. Firstly, there was a big group out front with Enzo and Julius in there for us, and I managed to then jump across with a few riders to it. I was really on the limit at that time actually but in the long valley I could recover and prepare for the final, with support from the guys. Then it got a bit tactical and I just had to stay smart and conserve my energy. On the second last climb when they attacked I just couldn’t follow over the top and had to do the flat part alone. I was around 30 seconds behind the group all the time, so then it was just a time trial to the finish. I think I paced it well in the end, so I think sixth was the maximum result possible, so we can be pleased with that.”

Speaking after the stage Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Phil West added: “Today was a bit of a mystery day as we thought it could have been a real GC day and a fight for the stage win from the GC group. However, with the momentum we have here we didn’t want to pass up the opportunity so once again we took a look towards the breakaway, but we wanted to try and get in there in an ‘easy way’ and without a long drawn out fight. In the end we were there with three guys which was good. It was another tough stage and we were able to go into the final with Gijs after some good support from Julius and Enzo in the group along the way. Gijs was able to ride a good final. He just couldn’t quite follow on the second last climb but showed real grit to continue. He actually almost came back to that group on the bottom of the last climb but from there it was basically every man for themselves, with everyone fighting their own way up the climb. It was a nice ride and I’m happy we were in the action once more and it’s great to see the guys show good teamwork each day here.”