Bob Jungels concedes time on the race's mountain top finish, but vows to fight until the very end.
For the second consecutive day, the Tirreno-Adriatico bunch traveled for over 200 kilometers, this time between Foligno and Sarnano Sassotetto, a 13.2km-long climb averaging 6.3% which turned the general classification on its head, following a series of attacks and incidents that surfaced inside the final ten kilometers of stage 4, the toughest of this edition.
Bob Jungels was one of the riders affected by the aforementioned incidents, as the Luxembourg Champion got caught with eight kilometers to go behind a crash of Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) and lost precious time, forcing him to chase the Sky-led peloton that was upping the tempo as a result of several accelerations coming from the GC contenders. The effort put in to remount cost Bob, who couldn't stay in the bunch once riders began to launch their bid for victory, and arrived at the finish two minutes behind stage winner Mikel Landa (Movistar).
"It was a hard and long day at the office. I was unlucky on the climb with that crash in front of me, due to which I had to spend a lot of energy, and as I already wasn't feeling good, it all made for a bad result today. This I cycling, I take things as they are and hope to recover for the remaining stages and hopefully do something and help the team", said the best young rider of the past two editions.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele/ Getty Images