"It has been super amazing. I have had a difficult year until now, as I had came short at every goal I had aimed at. Now I can finally celebrate. I want to dedicate this victory to my granddad, who passed away just before the Tour. His funeral was held only one week before the Tour. I was thinking of this during the last 10 kilometres: it has been very emotional for me.
It was not an easy stage tactic-wise. The beginning of the race was very stressful. It was very hard for a break to get up the road as there were almost 60 guys going for it. In our case, Wout Poels was going for the KOM jersey, riding aggressively, and that allowed me to just follow wheels. On the second-to-last climb, many riders set a strong pace from the bottom and it was very hard for me to follow them. But later I found the right pace and it got better for me. On the last climb I was afraid Pogacar might catch me."
