"We knew it was going to be a tough stage from the beginning. We thought we would all get back together after first climb, and we didn’t. We were a bit surprised because we didn’t know what was happening at the front. Michael Morkov and Tim Declercq were looking after me, and we were part of a big grupetto with riders from many different teams. To be honest, I wasn’t worried about the time limit: we had time references and, on the last climb, we paced ourselves to reach the finish line inside it."
