For all of the oddities and charm of the wider Tour de France peloton, there are a number of teams who turn up without much of a hope for anything by way of a result.
This has always been a reality of the Tour but in the Tadej Pogačar era there is increasingly thin gruel for everyone but UAE Team Emirates.
Step forward Lotto-Intermarché, a team so under the cosh that they are the recent amalgation of two recent teams: Lotto-Dstny and Intermarché-Wanty. Lennert Van Eetvelt is a handy climber, albeit without a Grand Tour stage win to his name from four previous attempts, while sprinter/Classics man Arnaud De Lie is similarly unproven at three-week stage racing and has had such horrid luck of late it makes you think there's a De Lie puppet in a cupboard somewhere with a bunch of pins stuck in it.
Anyway, De Lie climbed off early in the race after a couple of days of excreting god knows what from his earthly form, and Lotto-Intermarché where left with a question: what now?
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