After the hardest-fought stage of the 2017 Tour of Britain, it was LottoNL-Jumbo who came out on top, and in more ways than one. With Lars Boom coming into the day with a slender eight-second GC lead, it was all hands on deck to keep the green leader’s jersey intact ahead of the race’s final day to Cardiff on Sunday.
The Dutch squad managed that task handily, if not with-out some help from the sprinters’ teams, and also man-aged to grab a stage win in the process. But with the at-tacks starting from 80km out, and featuring the likes of Michal Kwiatkowski and a determined Katusha, the team were fully stretched.
“All the credit is to the guys who worked today and who pulled back that small breakaway [featuring Kwiatkowski among others] with 30km to go,” said Boom after the stage. “Without those guys I’m not in the lead. It’s a great team.”
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Primož Roglič and Victor Campanaerts, who lay second in the general classification before the stage, were among those putting in the hard miles on the front of the peloton. However, come the final climb of the day, 9km from the finish, it was Boom who took to chasing down the moves.
“I had to do my job too and I was happy that I could con-trol it on the climb,” he said. “With the small breakaway with Boasson Hagen, it was a little bit critical, but I think I went full on the downhill to keep the gap as close as possible.”
“Then some sprinter’s teams took over and still we won the sprint, so it was a great day.”
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