Congratulations to Romain Bardet for winning the stage with style and an attitude.
From the moment he went you could see he is on a mission, failure was not an option today, on top of that Frank van den Broek played a perfect support role. Moho found himself in a breakaway but the heat got to him, Cavendish at one point looked like he was done and will DNF, big kudos to his team getting him through, Healy animating the race. UAE testing the field, still today the superstars section didn't want to empty themself, tomorrow that will be needed, or Pogi won't be in a position to gain any advantage. Visma raced for Wout today and was prepared to burn Tratnik and Jorgenson in the process. Rogla and Bora racing smart, didn't get involved and kept all three potential GC threats in best position.