Tom Dumoulin took 13th in the bunch sprint on stage 7 in the Tour de Suisse. Norwegian Alexander Kristoff won the stage and the leading position of Thibaut Pinot has not been in danger.

With 164.6km, four climbs and rolling roads the course was relatively short and not too difficult today. Three strong riders made the early break, including the world champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx Quick Step).

Good timing by the chasing teams, as the three leaders were caught in the final kilometer. The slightly uphill finishing straight turned out to be ideal for the power sprinters, as Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) was the winner.

Dumoulin finished at 13th and keeps his 7th in the GC.

He reflected on today’s stage: “Again a tough finale today. I am not completely satisfied because our goal was to sprint with John.

“With the high pace on the rolling roads, the final 80km were quite difficult. Therefore, we missed the support for John’s sprint preparation in the finale.

"Myself, I could not do anything because of the seconds game for the GC. To not lose time, I had to stay with the first 15, so pulling John to the front was not an option.”

Coach Rudi Kemna added: “With defending Tom’s GC position and the sprinting opportunity with John, we had two goals today. We controlled the gap with Johannes [Fröhlinger] and Carter [Jones], together with Tinkoff – Saxo.

“Nikias [Arndt] had a difficult day and Georg [Preidler] punctured at a bad moment, so not much guys were left to do the sprint preparation, and John was not strong enough to do it on his own.”