Tour de France - Elia Viviani completes Grand Tour collection: This means a lot to me
Jul 10 2019 12:12 am CET
Deceuninck-Quick-Step
Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Elia Viviani has taken the victory of the fourth stage in the Tour de France, his first in the race and the one that completes his grand tour collection.
Viviani has already taken stage victories in the Giro d'Italia and in the Vuelta a España and he needed this win to complete the collection of wins in grand tours. The rider was taken perfectly by his sprint train and he launched a perfect move to take the win of the stage, which also was a relieve after failing to do so at the first stage of the race.
"This means a lot and I still can't believe it," said Viviani at the end of the stage. "This was my big goal for the race and we missed the first chance to win and put the Yellow on but I think after yesterday, after Julian did a phenomenal ride, it was the moment of the switch on of the team and today we did a perfect job. You saw how the lead out worked. I just want to thank the team, (Michael) Morkov and Max (Richeze), they are really unbelievable.
"I just had to do my job in the last 100-80 metres but I can do that better if they launch me like that. I am pretty happy, I just missed this win, I had won in the Giro and in the Vuelta and now in the Tour de France. This means a lot to me."
The Italian crossed the finish line ahead of Alexander Kristoff and Caleb Ewan after Deceuninck-Quick-Step did a perfect work in the last kilometre. "I just really focused on my lead out, because I lost the wheel of my lead out in the first stage and I was really disappointed after that," Viviani explained.
"I said today 'I will only focus on Max Richeze's wheel', I know Morkov does an amazing job, he is the best in choosing the time and he did it perfectly today. I saw Kristoff trying to anticipate me in the final but at the same moment, Max opened the window for me and that was just the perfect teamwork."
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