July 21, 2023
“The start of today’s stage has been pretty hard for me. It’s been quite emotional in the first few kilometres, because many riders came and talked to me. I want to say a big thank you to them, because they cheered me up. As for the rest, I managed to recover a little bit during the stage.
Of course, I was extremely disappointed yesterday evening. Who wouldn’t be? I don’t have an explanation as for what happened yesterday. There is no real explanation. I can be happy overall because I came to the Tour from an injury, without much training. In the beginning I was optimistic, because I felt very good in the first two weeks. But maybe my shape wasn’t perfect for the Tour. I’m happy to be here and in 2nd place of the GC. When you look at the whole picture, our Tour de France has been very good. We have had the yellow jersey for a few days, we got two stage wins, and may put two guys in the podium in Paris. We have an amazing team and we will try to fight until the end in order to get another stage win and keep the 2nd and 3rd position in the GC.”
