On home ground, Tom Dumoulin raced to fourth in the opening time trial of the Tour de France.

Tom Dumoulin took a fourth place at the opening stage of the Tour de France, an individual time trial of 13.8km in the city of Utrecht. Dumoulin put in a time of 15’04” and an average pace of almost 55km/h on the flat parcours, losing only 8″ on winner Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team).

Dumoulin said: ““I rode a strong time trial, which I enjoyed but unfortunately it was not enough for the win. I didn’t hear anything from my coach because I was riding through a wall of sound from the spectators, which was really cool.

“Of course it’s very special to ride on home grounds. Right now I’m a little bit disappointed so I’m not the most enjoyable person to be around.”

Warren Barguil explained: “I was over excited actually and started a bit too fast really.

“I was expecting more of myself and I am a little disappointed with my result, but this opening time trial was not my primary goal of the Tour de France.

“The crowds made it even more exciting and I really enjoyed riding through Utrecht today. Now that we’ve started I am really looking forward to the nice stages that are ahead of us.”

“It was very special, very intense, and a lot of emotions, and a lot of crazy people around, with so many people. The Tour is the Tour, it is unique and looking at my effort I think I did a good time trial. It was not super perfect but it was a good start for me”, said John Degenkolb.

“The next stages should be good for me and also for the rest of the team. I think we have a really good team for the coming days and I hope we can fight for stage victories and achieve some good results.”

Coach Marc Reef added: “Tom really rode a strong time trial, and although the result was a little less then we were hoping for it was the maximum possible today.

“Normally we have to accept it but that is really hard at this moment, maybe we will be satisfied with the fourth place after some reflection.

“Technically, Tom rode a good race and he paced his effort very well. Dennis was just faster today.”