Stage 16 of the Tour de France ended up a quiet day for ORICA-GreenEDGE, not part of the day’s breakaway that formed in the opening kilometres and survived to contest for the victory.

Having been an active part of breakaway moves in the second week of the Grand Tour, the Australian outfit took a gamble that didn’t pay off said sport director Matt White.

“The break went really early, in the first couple of kilometres,” White said. “It was really fast at the start and there was a lot of tailwind so we gambled that it would take a while to go.

“Svein Tuft is in a fair bit of pain from his crash a couple of days ago and Simon Yates has gone back downhill illness wise since he was in the break which meant we didn’t have a lot of options to play with.

“So we let the first one go and waited for it to come back but it didn’t and that was all she wrote.”

Regardless of missing out today, White was confident the team would bounce back for the third week for the Alps.

“We can’t do something everyday and we have ben pretty active and in the breaks we wanted to be this week,” White said. “Obviously it would have been nice to have someone in the break today but it didn’t turn out that way.

“Now we have a rest day and then four days in the Alps where we can try something and that’s what we are going to do.”