Tour de France stage 11 reactions roundup: Van Avermaet, Nieve, Mollema, Martin, Nibali
Jul 19 2018 05:12 am CET
Tour de France
The 11th stage of the Tour de France featured the second Alpine stage in which Geraint Thomas took the victory and seized the Yellow Jersey. Here are some reactions from the finish line.
Greg Van Avermaet (BMC)
"It will be strange to go back to my normal jersey. I like this jersey and I like my bike but tomorrow it is back to normal. These were great days at the Tour de France, I'm happy with how I raced with the yellow jersey and for me, it was one of the nicest moments of my career that's for sure. It was super hard today. I felt like I didn't have great legs but you still have to do the parcours, and even just doing the parcours was pretty hard."
Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott)
"It was a shame not to win because there was very little left to the finish line, but with three kilometres to go, I knew the gap was small. I gave it everything but it’s like this, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. We will try again. I did all day in the breakaway and I was on my limit. I could not do anymore."
Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo)
"I had a really bad day today. I had noticed right away this morning when I woke up; I had hoped that I would feel better every day, but this morning I even felt more pain than yesterday and then you know it will be tough. I suffered right from the 1st climb, but I managed to hang in there. But then on the 2nd climb, I knew it was over and the GC is gone. So then I thought about all the preparations, all the suffering, all the things I gave up to come here in the best shape possible.
"I am very, very disappointed, but it goes without saying that you don’t want to give up at the Tour so I will try to survive. I hope I will start to feel better again, probably not tomorrow, but maybe in the weekend and then, who knows, try to grab another stage victory."
Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates)
"It was a really good opportunity. I was coming up fast from behind so I thought I’d give it a go. I knew that on that last 4km everyone would be looking at each other and not really riding and if I was able to get a gap I’d have a good chance of pulling some time back. So, all in all, I’m really happy with it. I was pretty tired at the end, but considering how I’ve been feeling, I think today was a really good operation.
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida)
"I breathed for a moment and then I left. I managed well thanks to my physical condition which is still very good. On the last climb, the pace imposed by Team Sky was really remarkable and we lost seconds. Today was like this, but we are only halfway through the Tour and there are still several stages to recover."
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