'It's not ideal' - Tom Dumoulin hopes Jumbo-Visma can recover to mount Tour de France challenge

The Dutch team won three stages at the Criterium du Dauphine, which finished on Sunday, but also lost Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk to injuries.

Dumoulin, who finished seventh in the general classification, two minutes behind winner Dani Martinez, thinks the race showed that Jumbo-Visma are “very ready” for the Tour as they look to break Team Ineos’ dominance.

“Before yesterday I would have said yes [to being Tour favourites] but yesterday was really just a bad day for us. Stevie is really banged up and Primoz as well. There is still time to recover but it’s not ideal.

“I suffered like crazy today, actually the whole week, but today was…urgh, this was a hard race.”

Dumoulin was featuring in only his second race back after suffering serious injuries at last year’s Dauphine.

He finished second at the Tour in 2018 and says he is feeling in good form ahead of the race, which starts on August 29.

“I’m slowly stepping up, I can be satisfied with that,” he said. “I think since the Tour de France 2018 I haven’t felt like I felt today, good and in the mix.”