You might think the fatigue of the Giro still has to be in his legs, but when Dumoulin was asked about it by De Telegraaf, he immediately replied with a simple “no”. “Actually, I feel very fresh. After the Giro d’Italia, I consciously rested more than I would normally do. In the first nine days, I hardly even touched my bike,” the Sunweb pro said.
“I had it in my mind since the winter that I really wanted to drive the double. You never know what will happen at the Giro. For that reason, I always thought that I would really like to try the Tour after that. The Giro actually went very well from start to finish and nothing crazy happened to me. That’s why the choice to ride the Tour was actually quite simple.”
The Giro is still considered the main goal of the 2018 season for Dumoulin. Everything after that is just a bonus. “If things go badly in the Tour, it’s nice that I know that I have shown myself well in the Giro. I am very happy and proud of my performance in that race. No-one can take that feeling away from me.
“Anyway, I’ll be racing for the overall in the Tour. I know it’s going to be a physical and mental fight. It will once again become a tough fight. It is not that I’m racing there with the idea that I have already had a good grand tour. I am going to do everything to finish high up in the Tour too.”
