“We’re fed up with this, but we still have 18 stages to go,” Sports Director Jan Boven said. “We didn’t start this Vuelta perfectly because Steven Kruijswijk got sick after the Olympic Games. The team time trial went surprisingly well when you’re looking at it from that point of view, but the heavy stages like today and tomorrow come a little bit too early for him. Steven wants to compete with the best, but after his preparation, it’s all about limiting the damage as little as possible.