"I just had a call with my boys and with [my wife] Sarah. They for sure give me the support that I need to do these performances, and I want to say hi to them.
The plan was to go in the break. It was a very difficult stage to control. We knew that with Matthew [Brennan], me, Bruno [Armirail], Christophe [Laporte], we had some guys that are very good in a stage like this. We tried to be up there with a few riders so we could always play it, and that worked out perfectly. Bruno and I spent a big part of the day on the wheels, because we had Matty in the front group. We could bridge over on the last climb. Me and Matty in a group like that, we both have a chance, but we’re also able to sacrifice for each other. We kept attacking and the final attack worked.
I had it a little bit in my mind, when I looked at the profile and saw that last kicker before coming into the village. This distance [3.5 km] is the moment when people start to think about the sprint and if you’re able to open a gap, they don’t want to close it for each other anymore. It was close enough to the finish to be worth it. With Valentin [Paret-Peintre] I had a nice companion. He gave me a few turns and it was nice to battle to the line together."
