“It’s just incredible, I mean I finally won the Tour. Nothing can go wrong anymore. I’m sitting with my daughter. It’s the biggest bike race of the year and I’ve won it! Nobody can take it away from me. I always had the feeling that I could at least fight for the win, but at the end, Hautacam is the place where I thought I’d win unless something goes wrong. So many Danes arrived here to see me ride in the yellow jersey. I appreciate it so much. They’ve been cheering for me for three weeks. I’ll go to Holland to celebrate. On Wednesday I’ll be in Copenhagen, on Thursday to the town I live in, and on Friday I’ll be on the couch. Of course I’m happy about my victory. I want to celebrate and relax but I also want more at the Tour de France.
This Tour de France has been such a journey for me. I have always believed in myself, and I thought I could beat Tadej [Pogacar] for some months before the Tour. I’m sure it has been a real nice edition for the viewers, with a big fight for the overall victory and then all the shows that Wout [van Aert] put out there.
I’m happy with the performance of my team. We have been in control of the race the whole time, and super strong. We didn’t make too many mistakes. My life has changed, for sure. Maybe I won’t be able to walk back and forth in the street anymore, but hopefully it all will settle in a few months time, like it did last year. My goals for the future? For now I want to enjoy this victory. It would be nice to win this race every year, but let’s take it one year at a time. When I was younger I couldn’t even dream of winning this race. It will be hard to top what we did this month in the future.”
