"Today’s stage went sort of according to plan. We wanted to be on the breakaway, be it with me or with any of my teammates. In the end it was me who went on a breakaway that was too small and made me spend more energy than I would have liked. When the road got wet, we started to hope and believe it might be possible to make it to the finish. Unfortunately, I lost Rémi [Cavagna] and Edvald [Boasson Hagen] too early. Had we been together until Jaizkibel, we may had made it to the finish line, but we were all in our limit. When I hit Jaizkibel, the only thing I could do was riding on my threshold and hoping for the best. But, as things panned out, I would have needed to be one minute faster up the climb to keep the main group at bay. It just wasn’t meant to be my day. As for the KOM classification, it’s still a narrow lead - if I miss one break in the mountains it will be gone, and we are still a long way from reaching Paris. It’s very nice to be in the lead. I’m already in love with this polka-dot jersey. I fell immediately in love with it, indeed. Let’s see for how long I can wear it."
