"My goal to be once on the Tour podium is achieved!
It was super hard today. It started with a small joke and it got more and more serious. We planned it. Yesterday I said I would like to be on the podium of the Tour and Mathieu [Van der Poel] said we go at the front the two of us. We thought the others would never let us go but they did.
I think they thought we would go until the intermediate sprint but the goal was to go to the finish. We tried and we almost succeeded.
When the gap came down to 40 seconds, we thought it was over but somehow we got 1’20’’ again and then you have to start believing. We went for it.
I have a picture at home from a similar effort with Geraint Thomas in the Eneco Tour. Now I’ll hang one with Mathieu next to it."
