“It may have looked simpler to viewers at home than it actually was. The pace was high all day long,” said Bouwman after the Belgian Thomas De Gendt won ride. “Sunday will be a tough day for us. The Blockhaus will certainly be an extremely difficult task. It’s my first time riding up that mountain. We will see. When I have the legs I will definitely try it again. Of course I want to take points for the mountains classification and defend the corresponding jersey. But if I had to choose, I would prefer to win another stage.”
Bouwman leads the mountains classification with 68 points, the German Lennard Kämna follows with 43 points. Kämna is also number 2 in the general classification, 38 seconds behind Spanish rose jersey wearer Juan Pédro López. The ninth stage starts in Isernia. The finish is after 191 kilometers through the Apennines on the Blockhaus. The final climb is over 13 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 8.6 percent.