Tour de France - Adam Yates: I was never going to win that sprint, was I?
Aug 31 2020 02:28 am CET

Photo of Mitchelton-Scott jersey (c) Jonathan Roorda / CyclingPub.com
Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) finished on the third position of the second stage at the Tour de France and climbed to the second position of the General Classification.
The Briton followed the moves of Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) and Marc Hirschi (Sunweb) on the last climb of the day. The three riders arrived together to the last kilometre, but Yates couldn't follow the strong attack that gave the victory to the Frenchman.
"It was a really hard day out, even the climbs at the beginning were being ridden at a solid pace and you could feel the fatigue as we came onto the climb the first time, you could see there were a lot of people suffering, just like me," he said. "There were already two up the road and when they went it was still quite early and Jumbo-Visma were riding quite a hard pace anyway. So, I waited until the little steep bit and jumped across and tried to work straight away.
"In the final I got away with the two guys, we started working well towards the end, and yeah, I was never going to win that sprint, was I? So, I think third was the best I was going to come out of that situation. It was a block headwind and I ended up on the front, not a good scenario for me there, but like I said, I was probably never going to be winning that sprint anyway, they're both faster than me. So, I can be happy with third."