A Fantastic Adventure

After Tom Dumoulin’s Giro success, Michael Matthews and Warren Barguil continue Sunweb’s extraordinary run

- Peter Cossins

Sky may have taken the team classification, but there was no doubt about the team of the Tour de France. Sunweb won four stages and claimed the points and mountains titles thanks to Michael Matthews and Warren Barguil, respectively. This was quite a return for the German team on the back of its success at the Giro d’Italia, where Tom Dumoulin bagged the pink jersey and two stage wins of his own.

Sunweb’s was a Tour of two halves. During the first, Matthews’s quest for the green jersey looked unachievable as the Australian admitted he was reluctant to get involved in chaotic bunch finales and focused on gathering points in the intermediate sprints. Barguil, meanwhile, thought he’d won the stage into Chambéry, only to be told on live TV that he’d lost out by 6mm to Rigoberto Urán. His tears underlined that having a hefty lead in the KoM competition was little consolation.