The riders of Team LottoNL-Jumbo finished the eighth stage of the Tour de Suisse without too many problems. In a hard ride around capital Bern, Bert-Jan Lindeman was part of a breakaway. Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Pro Team) came out of that break to win the stage.

“Today ended up with satisfaction for us when you look at the fact that every one was able to finish without any damage”, sports director Jan Boven said after the race. “In my opinion, it was a hectic, dangerous race today. We had to act sharply. First of all, we wanted to be part of the breakaway, and on the other hand, we had to protect Robert Gesink and Laurens ten Dam. Both succeeded, but with Bert-Jan, we didn’t have our freshest rider in the leading group.”

Lindeman admits that he didn’t play a major role in the leading group.

“I’ve had a tough first part of my season”, he explained. “So I didn’t had the power to grab a result today. When the breakaway formed, it was quite a way back in the peloton, but I was good enough to jump into the move. I’m glad that I was able to attack today, at least. You never know if it’s going to deliver something. But the profile today was very hard.”

Robert Gesink seemed poised to move up to tenth place in the general classification, but Warren Barguil (Team Giant-Alpecin) was in the leading group and passed him by just one second.

“We’re going to give everything we have tomorrow to reach that top-10 position,” Boven said. “Robert has to push through his limits. With the Tour in sight, even Laurens has to give everything he has.”