Jumbo-Visma refuses to point finger at unhelpful teams UAE and Quick-Step: "That's the game"

Prior to the Tour of Lombardy, surely every cycling fan agreed that there were three top favorites for the race: Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and eventual winner Tadej Pogacar. Yet throughout the race it was only that first formation that took control.

Those who turned on the TV during the first hours of racing at the Tour of Lombardy saw mainly one man in the lead: Sam Oomen of Jumbo-Visma. The Dutchman had to single-handedly regulate the lead of a sizeable breakaway group, which he - eventually with the help of Mikkel Honoré of Richard Carapaz's EF Education-EasyPost - cleverly succeeded in doing.

Afterwards, team manager Marc Reef of Jumbo-Visma gave an explanation to IDLProCycling.com, admitting that there had been talks. "UAE-Team Emirates did say that Sjoerd Bax had fallen, which was actually the guy who should have been riding. It's always a game," the sporting director explained. That fall by Bax - who broke his femur - incidentally also involved Soudal Quick-Step riders Evenepoel and Mauri Vansevenant.

Reef dismissed the fact that Jumbo-Visma had to deploy men like Jan Tratnik and Wilco Kelderman earlier than they had perhaps hoped. "We also did temporize and especially let Sam ride, but in the end that was partly the choice of the other teams. That was the game being played and you have to accept that."

Jumbo-Visma sport director Reef honest: "Pogacar was the strongest"

In the end, Roglic had to settle for third place in Bergamo. "Pogacar was the strongest," Reef averred. "He rode away at the top, that's where he had the most left. Primoz had just jumped up, so then it's a fair story. Sure, after that you have the game going on further back, where riders are looking at each other more closely than there is intention to ride back to Pogacar. But you always have that a little bit."

The fact that Pogacar seemed to align his course in part with Roglic made sense, according to Reef. "But actually Primoz doesn't get nervous because of Tadej. They always focus on each other, you also saw that very much in Tre Valli Varesine. That was when Van Wilder was the third party who took advantage of that, but now Pogacar was just the strongest. Then we have to be satisfied with a third place," concluded the sporting director.