“We quickly got into a bigger breakaway than I had hoped for and the only bad thing was that Adam Yates from UAE was there and unfortunately he had strong team orders to stay in that group. I tried to talk with him along with everybody else in that group but I also respect him for sitting there. I understand his team’s tactics. I wanted to split that group because I felt he was the one keeping the bunch behind chasing us. Unfortunately, we only got away as a group of four guys and that was not enough to make it to the finish. It must have been insanely hectic behind us and even in the breakaway, when the bunch caught us it was still very hard. Probably one of the hardest days I’ve had this Tour, just in three and a half hours! A short day but a hard one. We try our best and our ultimate goal on the team is to win a stage and today was a good opportunity for us in many ways. We could both be aggressive and in the sprint and we tried everything with what we have.”
