Israel Start-Up Nation’s team leader, Ben Hermans, did well against the clock on stage 4 of Critérium du Dauphiné, moving up to 17th place in the general classification.

Wednesday’s 16.4 km long individual time trial had several short ascents for the riders to overcome, meaning that it was crucial to save energy for the final part of the course.

Early on, Reto Hollenstein put in a strong performance as he crossed the line in fourth place, while Mads Würtz Schmidt came in 14 seconds down on his teammate not long after.

However, the best ISN time of the day was set by Hermans, who stopped the clock at 22:27 minutes, ultimately finishing in 23rd place, which saw him move up to 17th place in the GC going into the upcoming mountain stages.

Ben Hermans: “This was a nice course but a hard course. You had to do six efforts over the hills and if you didn’t have the legs for it, you would be done after the first three. I managed to recover well after each effort, which allowed me to go really deep all the way to the finish. I think I can be happy with my performance today, also looking at the GC. I hope to have good legs in the mountains.”