Daan Luijkx reflects on second rest day

The cyclists enjoyed the mussel party hosted by Vacansoleil-DCM on the second rest day of the Tour. Media from all over the world, sponsors, guests and everyone in the Vacansoleil-DCM cycling team really enjoyed the mussels from Zeeland and exchanged cycling stories in lovely sunshine. Despite the festive mood Daan Luijkx reflected on the misfortunes of the past two weeks.

Due to the setback, the Tour has not gone as hoped for Luijkx's team. “We planned the Tour around one rider, Wout Poels. He fell 25 kilometres before the start of the mountains and since then he has been in the hospital in intensive care. Our team has lost their edge with the loss of Poels. We built the team around him, though it was never outwardly communicated so as not to add any extra pressure on Wout. After his crash we tried to devise an alternate route and new goals. However a support rider cannot suddenly become a classification rider.”

Luijkx realises that his team has not performed as they did last year. “In the first week we were intentionally not in the escape. That’s strange to many people because we were a fixture in the escapes last year. This time we chose not to waste energy in journeys that would end in a bunch sprint. The Tour de France is a tour with the largest exposure in the world and fantastic in terms of publicity. We decided we would put all our energy into assisting Wout, in view of the standings and on a day victory.”

Everything fell apart on the Friday, July 6th in the sixth stage towards Metz. “There were six riders involved in the crash. They rode at a speed of more than seventy miles per hour. Four of those six are out of the course. I don't blame any of the riders. If a rider falls three times and sustains injuries from head to toe, I don't believe he should continue. We were ready for the Tour, had rides prepared, but we did not take into account that six men would fall.

With four stages still to go 4 riders will hope for good luck. Luijkx: “Johnny Hoogerland is good. I hope he will show himself in the next few days. Rafael Valls has the freedom to try something by himself now, but we have had to patch him up physically. With Kris Boeckmans we can try to do something in the sprint. We have formulated new goals, but is it harder to achieve this with four riders instead of nine.”

Previous page>