Team Sky celebrate Froome's stage win, maglia rosa
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Chris Froome (Team Sky) on the attack(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Kenny Elissonde launches Chris Froome's attack(Image credit: Getty Images)
Chris Froome (Team Sky) on the attack(Image credit: Getty Images)
Miguel Lopez and Thibaut Pinot lead the chase(Image credit: Getty Images)
Chris Froome (Team Sky) on the attack(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chris Froome (Team Sky) - stage winner, new race leader
I don't think I've ever attacked with 80k to go like that on my own and gone all the way to the finish but the team did such a fantastic job to set that up for me. It was going to take something really special today to try, and first of all, get rid of Simon [Yates] and get away from [Tom] Dumoulin and [Domenico] Pozzovivo. To go from fourth to first - I wasn't going to do that on the last climb alone, so I had to try from far out and Colle delle Finestre was the perfect place - gravel roads I guess reminds me a bit of riding on the roads in Africa. It just felt good and I said it's now or never, I have to try.
It's great - obviously there's still a really hard day tomorrow, but the legs are feeling good and I've been feeling better and better as the races has gone on. Even today up front I gave it everything but I also tried to stay within my limits and tried to stay within myself. Hopefully we can finish this off tomorrow.
Nico Portal (Team Sky directeur sportif)
It's amazing. We forget it's Chris Froome. He's been battling with Contador, Quintana and Nibali and these guys can do this type of thing. Obviously we still believed it could happen. You've seen it the past two weeks on the media, everyone's saying 'what are you gonna do guys?'.
We keep on pushing, Froomey didn't want to stop and kept on fighting until the end. No matter how strong they are, there's only a few champions in the world that can do this. It wasn't 20 seconds, it was 3 minutes 20 seconds or something, it's unbelievable. It's hard to know where it stands. Most of the time we need to ride defensively because we're in the leader's jersey but it was different here, a different situation. He needed to build up to this because of crashes.
The way he rode and the team rode today was amazing. We saw some weakness yesterday in the GC contenders and our team has become stronger and stronger. Today on the Finestre we decided it was an all or nothing day, so I said you know there isn't much tactics today, it was all about the legs. It was unbelievable what he did." (Eurosport)
I felt much better today - this was a really crazy stage, that's how the story of the Giro is written. Now I'm hoping to have good legs again tomorrow, because my dream has always been to make the podium in Rome.
I rode flat out all day. I kind of saved the day - I gained some spots on GC but I was hoping for more.
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It's been a good day for the white jersey. The fight is still on with Richard Carapaz, but with about 15 seconds lead, I think I'm in a good position and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
David Brailsford (Team Sky principal)
I'm very proud, we're halfway through this two-day block that is going to decide the race. We had nothing to lose we were fourth on GC, a long way back. Sometimes you have to race in true racing fashion. We spent all day yesterday dissecting the stage, our nutrition team, our coaching team and working with the DS's to chop the race into different sections and we decided we'd try to drop Yates on the switchbacks during the Finestre.
You don't know whether it's going to work or not but you certainly have to try and you never find out until you do try. He [Froome] was coming up in form after the crash in the first week which put him back. The plan was always to get to this point and win the race in this block and we just thought let's put it on the line and see what happens. You can have the best plan but it takes the individual and the mentality to deliver it. (Eurosport)
