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Tom Dumoulin abandons Tour de Suisse

By Cycling News

published 15 June 2017

Dutchman finally taking a break after Giro d'Italia success

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Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb)(Image credit: Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us)

Tom Dumoulin shares his Giro d'Italia trophy with the hometown fans(Image credit: Team Sunweb)

Tom Dumoulin celebrates his first Grand Tour win.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb)(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)

Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) slipped out of the maglia rosa on stage 19(Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Tom Dumoulin's Giro d'Italia exertions have finally caught up with him, as the Dutchman declined to turn up for the start of stage 6 of the Tour de Suisse on Thursday.

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Dumoulin claimed the biggest result of his career by winning the Giro – his consecration as a Grand Tour rider – but just five days after wrapping up the title in Milan he was back in action at the inaugural Hammer Series in London.

The following weekend he was in Switzerland for the Tour de Suisse, but could only manage fifth in the opening-day time trial. He fought through the following stages without going for the general classification and even contributed to the sprint lead-out for Michael Matthews, but the fatigue was evident.

The Sunweb team confirmed on Thursday morning that Dumoulin had withdrawn due to the effects of "an intensive and demanding racing period".

"Before heading to Switzerland we already knew that our expectations would be taken day by day with Tom. At the uphill finish of stage 4 we monitored increased fatigue and yesterday we tried it once again," said Sunweb coach Marc Reef.

"The conclusion was that it wasn’t worth continuing to battle and we would rather him recharge his batteries once again for next week’s nationals before taking a break in July, ahead of the second part of the season.”

Dumoulin will hope to retain his Dutch time trial title at the end of the month before riding the Vuelta a España in August and September and looking to the time trial at the World Championships.