Like last year, the weather conditions seemed to be the game-changer of the first stage. The strong gusts of wind caused dangerous situations and forced the organization to make some modifications. It was decided that all riders had to do their time trial on their conventional road bikes and that the differences at the finish line would not count towards the classification.

What remained was the battle for the stage win. Most of the Team Visma | Lease a Bike riders took it easy and took no risks ahead of the next few days. Kelderman was one of the few who went full speed ahead. He completed his race against the clock in 19:23 to finish sixth. Josh Tarling was the fastest with 18:21.

"I trained hard for it, so I wanted to hit the gas today. I felt good on the road and after my time trial I even got to be in the hot seat for a while. It is unfortunate that circumstances forced a halt to the race, but I am looking forward to the coming days," Kelderman said.

Sport director Frans Maassen thought it was a logical decision to adapt the stage. "Safety comes first, so I'm glad we all agreed. Of course it's unfortunate that we couldn't race at full speed, because it was a beautiful course. The most important thing was that everyone crossed the line safely, and that worked out."