Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), winner of the KOM classification: “It’s a jersey I’ve been aiming at in the last few years in the Tour and here in La Vuelta. It’s my fourteenth Grand Tour and it’s the first time I succeed so it’s really nice to finally be able to win this. I just needed a bit of luck with the breakaways. Today, (Bauke) Mollema was at the front but (Ben) King wasn’t there so I just had to focus on one guy. And my condition has been really good for the past three weeks. I was aiming for the World championships but I’m not going so I used all my strength in these three weeks. I knew today would be hard again. We made a big fight for the mountains jersey and I believe it was nice.”
