Jumbo Visma (open in new tab) showed his strength in the first Pyrenees stage of the Tour de France (open in new tab) on Saturday, but the Dutch team eliminated its top rival in Primos Roglic (open in new tab).

On the plus side, Roglic remains in second place overall, three seconds behind Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) in the maillot jaune.

Meanwhile, the number of riders within a minute of GC behind Yates and Roglic has dropped from 15 to 10. The erratic performance of Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadier) in Peyresourde was another positive for the Dutch team.

However, with Dumoulin losing two minutes, his GC ambitions no longer made sense and Jumbo Visma got one of the two overall cards.

With the exception of a second attack by UAE Team Emirates youngster Tadei Pogachal, Roglic controlled most of the attacks without difficulty, but was not aggressive at the finish, repeating as usual, "It was a start."

"I'm not surprised that the favorite to win was still at the finish. It wasn't a battle for the stage win. It was very different because we weren't in contention for [the stage] win," he noted.

"It was a hard tempo, it's true, but it's the first mountain stage and there's more to come.

"We're always trying to do our best as a team to be as high up as possible."

Sports director Grischa Niermann was rather more direct when asked if the glass is half full or half empty for Jumbo Visma.

"I think in general we are one day closer to the goal, as Primosch is still in second place by three seconds," he reflected.

"With Tom losing time, things may not have gone 100% as we wanted them to.

As a first test of strength, the mainstays lived up to expectations, Nierman said.

He noted that "Primosch wanted to be with the other players and wanted to follow them when they attacked," and he acknowledged that Pogachar was able to differentiate himself from the others.

"It's a shame that it happened," he reasoned, "but there are more difficult days ahead. Nor did he say that "holding the line" like Roglic was the worst outcome: "Thibaut Pinot (Grupama-FDJ) also dropped out of the bunch 10 minutes behind. There was a big explosion today."

Logrich's teammate, George Bennett, explained that today was not straightforward with regard to the team's support riders, which had a big impact on how hard the team could hit.

For one thing, climbing specialist Sepp Kuss (who twice led out for Rogucci at the summit finish of the Orciere Melette and the Criterium du Dauphiné) fell early in the Porte de Vallès. He suffered because he had a lot of work to do on stage 7 at Echelon, Bennett explained. Bennett also said that he had been on his feet "since the crash in Nice."

"We still have a lot of mountains to climb and we don't have to worry about our times every day ...... Today the team showed that they can shake the tree," Bennett insisted to ITV.

"Unfortunately, Sepp had a really big day yesterday. Since my crash in Nice I haven't been running well enough. And to achieve something like that" - attacking his rivals hard - "we both needed to get back to our level. And it may take us a few more days to find our legs."

Bennett was unsparing in his praise of Dumoulin's willingness to sacrifice his own chances for a common goal. In Bennett's words, "We are all here for one goal.

"He said on the race radio, 'I'm not in good shape and I'm not here to finish 10th in the Tour.' So he puts the team first and is committed to Primorsch." This is a huge accomplishment for him.