Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike): "Of course, I wanted to win the stage. My team did a really good job to make it a bunch sprint, so it’s unfortunate that I came second. Also, today I knew that finishing in the first 3 meant the Red Jersey, so all in all it’s a good day. I knew [Kaden Groves] is super fast so I had him on my eyes for the sprint. I got led-out really strong by Edoardo Affini. It was difficult to time the sprint. The guys from behind carried a bit more speed so that’s something we should have looked to but Kaden passed me really strong and he deserves this win. Mentally, [Dylan van Baarle’s abandon] affected the team. It’s not a nice start to lose a rider on the first day. And Dylan has had some bad luck so it wasn’t nice to hear this news over the radio. I hope he’s not in too much pain and he can heal very soon. I hope we’ll have another chance tomorrow. The legs are good and we’ll try over and over again."
