"The initial plan was to try and be in the breakaway. It was a really hard stage, super fast racing from the start. It took a while until our group went and even then we had to fight to get the gap. I felt I didn’t have my best day and in the end I was fighting against myself.
It’s really nice to be in yellow to go to Mûr-de-Bretagne, a special place for me, but when you see how Tadej [Pogacar] is riding, if he attacks tomorrow, or Jonas [VIngegaard] as well, it will be very difficult not only for me but for the whole bunch to follow on this climb. I’ll try my best to recover as good as possible from today and then we’ll see tomorrow but first I’m gonna enjoy the yellow jersey. I will probably only have it for one day.
I don’t know why [UAE Team Emirates-XRG] pulled behind me. They’re not afraid of me but maybe they wanted to control somebody else. It’s their right to pull, they do their own tactics and it’s up to us to ride faster if we want the jersey. I would have loved to have a bit more than one second but I’m happy to have it again for one day tomorrow."
