Tour de Suisse effort catches up with Dumoulin at Dutch nationals

Having won both of the Tour de Suisse's time trials on his way to third overall last week, Tom Dumoulin was looking to continue his momentum by defending his national Dutch time trial title. However the efforts of the race caught up with the Giant-Alpecin rider as he finished 49 seconds down on winner Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) in fourth place.

"I was not fully recovered from last week's Tour de Suisse, but hoped that 95% would be enough for the win. Unfortunately, that was not the case as the level turned out to be too high to take the beautiful jersey home," Dumoulin said after the race as he finished just four seconds off the podium.

The 24-year-old had won all three races against the clock this season that he started before the 53.5km national championships with the long distance testing his fatigued legs. Dumoulin led the Tour de Suisse after winning the prologue which set the platform for an opportunity to chase a high overall result with his podium place the best result of his career so far in a WorldTour stage race.

"I set my pace using my power meter but the first intermediate already showed that my time wasn't great so I had to accelerate, which I was not capable of,' Dumoulin said. "After the altitude training camp I directly went to the Tour de Suisse, where I dug deep and fought for my GC position every day. For now, I will focus on my recovery and take my rest."

Dumoulin, 2014 Dutch cyclist of the year, will have the chance to avenge his loss in the opening time trial of the Tour de France on home soil next Saturday with the team deciding to rest him instead of competing in Sunday's race race to ensure he is fresh for the Utrecht Grand Départ.

"The others showed that 100% was necessary for the victory and the level was really high," coach Adriaan Helmantel said. "Tour de Suisse was really demanding for Tom. Now we will have the time to recover, as it was a good decision to not start in Sunday's road race."