"I would say this one goes in the top five of my Tour de France victories. I got flashbacks from the Tourmalet stage from 2023 [to Cambasque-Cauterets] when I broke my hand. But, yes, this is an incredible victory, and one of the sweetest for sure. Yesterday, when we were coming back from the stage, we were already very hyped talking about today’s stage. I woke up at 7 this morning and my mind was going crazy. I was really excited for today. I knew it was going to be a good day. We just committed, riding as if we had nothing to lose. If we explode, we explode… But in the end, we succeeded and I’m super proud with everybody. It was crazy teamwork.
I couldn’t ask for a better situation. I’m happy to take victory and take the overall lead. Now we need to focus on the next days.
I was not calculating seconds or minutes, I just wanted to go full gas all the way to the finish. I din’t think I would take the Yellow Jersey today. I just heard that Torstein Træen crashed on the downhill from Tourmalet. I hope he is okay and I hope he can recover fast."
