Tom Dumoulin thinks he's 'quite close' to where he needs to be after comeback at Tour de Suisse
The 2017 Giro d'Italia winner looked strong in the opening Tour de Suisse time trial
Tom Dumoulin says he's quite close to where he needs to be after returning to racing for the first time after taking a break from the sport.
Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) managed a very impressive 16th place in the opening time trial of the Tour de Suisse 2021, beating the likes of Luxembourg time trial champion Bob Jungels (Ag2r-Citroën) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix).
Speaking after the race, Dumoulin said: "It was good. I’m not at my best yet of course, but that was also not to be expected. I’m just happy to be back and to be racing again.
"I didn't really have any expectations or hopes in terms of results. Well, my only hope was I would not be in the second half of the bunch. But luckily I'm quite close. And this offers me some opportunities for the next week to improve."
The former time trial world champion said that he didn't have time to enjoy the ride as he was concentrating on the effort in the time trial, adding that he was nervous before and during the ride.
"It was good but not good enough yet. Especially the second half," Dumoulin said.
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"I noticed that I missed some power to really pull through I think in the technical first half of the TT I was kind of okay, but then you notice in the second half that when you have these long straights and you really need the power I'm still lacking a little bit but that's okay."
Jumbo-Visma looks to be set to support Dumoulin and Sam Oomen for a potential hit out at the general classification, with Oomen being the likely leader while Mike Teunissen will target sprint opportunities.
The second stage of the Tour de Suisse is a standard profile for the race with lots of testing lumps towards the second half of the day between Neuhausen am Rheinfall to Lachen over 178km.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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