It always looked like it would. Though a stiff breeze was blowing through the sunflowers and afternoon storms were forecast, it would be straightforward for the sprinters’ teams to control attacks on the 180-km race course across the rolling hills of Bourbonnais.

Still, there was a chance. If we could open the race early and get numbers up the road, there was a chance we could steal a march on the chase.

Andrey Amador gave it a go, but could only get away with a group of three. The sprinters’ teams were determined to finish the stage with a bunch kick and never let Andrey’s group get more than a few minutes. He sat up when they had brought the break’s advantage down to 15 seconds.

As the wind picked up and the storms rolled in, our riders kept their wits about them in the peloton. It was a stressful day in the bunch, especially when the rain began to fall. But they all stayed upright on the fast, technical run into Moulins on wet roads.

Tomorrow looks like a day for the break. And we’ll be going for it.

Hear our riders’ thoughts from after today’s stage.

We knew that the wind was going to come from the front at the beginning of the stage, so we wanted to go as relaxed as possible with the hope that the peloton would let us go. Three riders were not enough. We would have liked to be six or seven in the break today, because we knew that in the last 50 kilometers we would have the wind in our favor, and with a six- or seven-man group, we would be able to make the peloton suffer a lot to bring us back. In the end, we decided to go back to the peloton, as it was impossible to make something out of the situation.

I think tomorrow’s stage is totally for a break. We want to go and get some stages. Unfortunately, we are out of the GC battle, but the team is pursuing the KOM jersey, and we still have so many days in front of us to go for that stage win.

For me, personally, it was just a day of keeping the rubber side down, looking after myself, spending as little energy as possible, not crashing, looking after the boys, playing it by ear, and saving it for the mountains to come. You can’t switch off, because that is when you touch a wheel, and that’s when you hit the deck, because someone drops a bottle. You have to be on it all the time. I tell myself that you only have to concentrate for four hours a day, but it is such intense concentration.

Today was a rest day—almost a rest day. Rigo will come into action tomorrow and all of the stages from now all the way to Paris.

We wanted to open the race and expected a bigger fight at the start and for a group of eight riders or so to go, but obviously the sprinters’ teams showed that they wanted to control from kilometer zero. It was not the best move for Andrey to be in that group of three, but once you are there you just wait and see what the peloton does with you. Once we hit the tailwind, the peloton was just 15 or 20 seconds behind, so he sat up. Tomorrow is going to be like yesterday, for sure. It is going to be a big fight again with three climbs in the final part. It is a really nice stage for us, especially for Alberto and Magnus, but the other guys too.