Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Vismo) was forced to retire during the 17th stage of the Tour de France, due to headaches. He was 30th overall.
The Jumbo-Visma team has only four riders four days before the finish in Paris: Wout Van Aert, Sepp Kuss, Mike Teunissen and Jonas Vingegaard. After Primoz Roglic, Robert Gesink and Tony Martin, it was indeed Steven Kruijswijk who had to dismount. The 34-year-old Dutchman started well from Muret on Wednesday for the 17th stage, but he retired after an hour of racing. Sick since Monday’s rest day in Andorra, the climber suffered from severe headaches and had no choice but to get into one of his team’s cars, while two first-category passes and the final climb of the Col du Portet, classified out of category, are on the day’s program. There are therefore only 144 riders left in the race.
?? #TDF2021 @s_kroijswijk abandons @LeTour #DNF
Steven started to feel ill during the restday and that feeling didn’t improve unfortunately.
He’ll now focus on @lavuelta
Get well soon Stevie!? pic.twitter.com/pzdn49fQbS
— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) July 14, 2021
Kruijswijk must be leader in the Vuelta
Third in the Tour de France in 2019, Steven Kruijswijk did not come on this Tour 2021 as a leader, but as a luxury teammate of Primoz Roglic. But the Slovenian quickly gave up and it was finally the young Jonas Vingegaard who took his role, he who occupies the third place in the general classification at 5’32 behind Tadej Pogacar. Kruijswijk, meanwhile, was in 30th place, 1:05 away from the yellow jersey, after two weeks of the Tour where we hardly saw him, with a 19th at Mûr-de-Bretagne for the best result. Tuesday, already suffering from his illness, he had arrived at five minutes of the best. The Dutchman will now have a month to recover, before the start of the Vuelta (August 14 in Burgos), where he will be the leader of the Jumbo-Visma team.
