"I believed in myself. The season started very well for me and now winning a stage of La Vuelta is very important for me and for the team. I’m very very happy. I worked very hard to prepare for the Tour but things didn’t turn our way with the team, it was a bit sad. I still felt good legs so I asked the team to let me do La Vuelta a España to try and get a stage win and now look… It’s not easy. It’s not just about winning today, it’s a lot of dedication, a lot of work that people don’t see. This is very satisfactory for me. [Crashes like Kämna’s in the final] are things that happen in races. We had already done that downhill once and I saw that he was going very fast so I broke because I knew that if we followed his pace, we would crash. It’s a shame for him and then it was just about playing for the stage win. It went my way and I’m very happy."
