"I’m actually happy. I think I made one mistake, or just a calculation mistake, I was surprised by the early sprint from Wout [Poels]. I came back very strong but the finish line was 10 metres too early for me. We took the last 60 kilometres in our hands. The other guys attacked very early early and I spoke on the radio and I said: ‘Look, now we control the stage ourselves, we try to make the best of it, go every climb faster and faster and we’ll see on the final climb how it happens’. I knew it was steep but I didn’t expect the cobbles to be in such a bad condition. I struggled on that part, I paced myself to come back. Maybe I made a small mistake when I stopped pushing when I had 20 metres on the others on the valley. We cannot really say it was a bad day for us, we did a really good job. I just reacted like 2 or 3 seconds too late to go on Wout’s wheel but he deserves this victory so much. I think it’s a pity I don’t take my fourth victory but we can be very proud with three stage wins, three times second, a few times fourth and also the best climber’s jersey."
