Dumoulin misses Alpe d'Huez win but remains Team Sky's main Tour de France threat

20 July 2018 07:34
Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) may have missed out on a stage win atop Alpe d"Huez on stage 12 of the Tour de France but the Dutchman solidified his position as Team Sky's main threat in the overall standings. Dumoulin finished second to stage winner and yellow jersey Geraint Thomas on the mountain but put several seconds in Chris Froome, who faded in the sprint and slipped to fourth. As the race leaves the Alps after three days of relentless racing, and with time bonus factored in, Thomas leads Froome by 1:39 with Dumoulin a further 11 seconds adrift. Dumoulin has shown that his Giro d'Italia exploits have not hampered his chances and with Vincenzo Nibali out of the race due to a crash, and Romain Bardet and Nairo Quintana currently focused on the podium rather than winning, Dumoulin remains the thorn in Team Sky's side. He has the individual time trial later on in the race to fall back on and he will be confident of beating Froome on his favourite terrain. Although Thomas is currently the strongest rider on the race and deserves to be in yellow, he is still an unknown quantity when it comes to challenging for honours in a three-week race.ADVERTISEMENT "Team Sky tried to keep both riders in GC," Dumoulin said as he warmed down on the rollers after the stage. "Froome had the chance to attack and Thomas didn't. That's good to know for the future. In the last two days Geraint was stronger." "In terms of the GC I'm in third position and that's my place for now. Today I was slightly stronger than Froome. Geraint was still the strongest." Stage 12 saw a high-power break forge clear on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Madeleine. The move included Alejandro Valverde, Robert Gesink, Ilnur Zakarin and Steven Kruijswijk with the LottoNL pair leading the charge before Kruijswijk attacked alone with over 75km to go. The Dutchman started the stage less than three minutes behind yellow and when he established a six-minute lead Team Sky were forced to hit the panic buttons. The British team used valuable resources in their chase and by the time the race reached the final climb the cream of the Tour de France had risen to the top with Dumoulin still in contention. You can read more at Cyclingnews.com.read full article

Source: Cycling News