Tour de France stage 10 reactions roundup: Izagirre, Nibali, Latour, Froome, Quintana, Uran
Jul 18 2018 05:04 am CET
Tour de France
The tenth stage of the Tour de France took the riders to the Alps for the first time on a day in which Julian Alaphilippe took his first victory at the race and the GC riders had their first mountain test. Here are some reactions to the stage.
Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida)
"I'm not happy because I would have liked to win but today Julian Alaphilippe was simply the strongest. On the penultimate climb, there was a moment when I suffered a lot but then I recovered and I started in pursuit. At the top, the French rider had an advantage of over 1'30'', I recovered something downhill and on the last ascent I was at full gas, but it was too late. I would like to try again but now we have to focus on Vincenzo because now he is really ahead in the overall and me and my teammates are here at the Tour to help him the much as possible."
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida)
"Perhaps the fans expected more attacks but we went really strong and with that pace, it becomes very difficult to take initiative. Tomorrow's stage is short and explosive; I expect more fireworks."
Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale)
"It's always nice to get the white jersey for the best young rider. Beyond that, I am pleased to have stayed with Romain until the end of the stage. There are still big days waiting for us, the road is still long. Today, our goal was to put some notches in the mountains. It is always difficult to know how the body will react after a rest day. It was really fast, we saw some favourites crack on the Colombière. I think it's a good day for the team. It gives us even more morale."
Chris Froome (Sky)
"There as a little bit of wacky races going on when I had a puncture on the dirt section and had to swap wheels. Then when I got the spare wheel from my teammate I realised that the wheel was also flat so there was a little bit of a comedy of errors going on there. Thankfully it was quite far from the finish so I was able to get back in. I think everyone played it a bit conservatively with the upcoming two stages, but from our point of view I was really happy with how we rode and we had numbers upfront today which was the main thing."
Nairo Quintana (Movistar)
"I think we all three felt well. The body always tends to react in strange ways after such a difficult stage like the pavé one – which, combined with a rest day, makes things hard to predict. Many people struggle in those situations, and some people paid, as we all could see. Fortunately, it wasn’t a problem for us; we did well during the day. With three demanding, consecutive efforts in the Alps, anything can happen."
Rigoberto Uran (EF Education First)
"Believe me we are going to the end here. We're not giving up. We'll fight to the end and see what happens in the coming days."
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS