"I have to say that the last kilometre I was screaming for them to confirm one minute, and I didn’t believe it. Two wins in the same Tour de France. I’m speechless. I could never have dreamed about something better.
"When the group was there, they had all the best riders in the world on hilly terrain, and I thought ' how do I beat these guys?' The moment came after he [Matteo Trentin] attacked really hard, and I was also at the limit. I thought that if I just got a small gap, they might look at each other, and that is exactly what happened. That was my luck.
"For the rest of my life, this is a memory for life, I’m super happy." (Eurosport)
“It was a pity the others wanted to make people lose rather than try to win. It wasn’t a lot of fun for me. I would have preferred to have fought and lost the sprint for first than lost the sprint for eighth.
“The break all happened in a moment. After the intermediate sprint, I decided to try to keep going because I knew that if we brought [Sam] Bennett to a sprint, we didn’t have much chance of winning. So I said to Peter [Sagan], ‘Let’s go.’ He was convinced and then Greg [Van Avermaet] came up to us as well, and in a moment that group formed. I think the whole peloton was very tired, the GC guys were thinking of the time trial tomorrow and after another stage with a high average speed, everyone was happy to let a group go to fight it out for the stage.
“I attacked first. Peter closed me down. I was trying with Van Avermaet. I told him everyone was on the limit a bit. And then Kragh Andersen picked the right moment again, well done to him.” (EuroSport)
Primož Roglič (Jumbo Visma), overall leader after stage 19
“I am feeling good. Today was a good day, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Normally, I will go to do one more recon tomorrow, but I have already checked it. I’ll look again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow it’s all on me. The team has done an amazing job, I have the [yellow] jersey but we have all worked for it.
“I’m still relaxed. So far so good. I just have to take it in the moment. I just have to do my job.”
On exclusion of team directeur sportif Merijn Zeeman:
“For sure I’m not happy about it because it’s bad news for us. I was not there, I didn’t see what was happening, so it’s really difficult to comment anything.” (France Télévisions)
Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quickstep) - eighth on stage and green jersey leader
"I want to thank my team again. It was a really hard day and I know that I probably race very frustrating for other competitors, but it’s all I can do because they’re so strong." (Flobikes)
Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) - finished in peloton 7:38 behind stage winner
“I’m feeling a lot of disappointment because I didn’t come here to finish 30th or 35th. I was second on the Dauphiné and I wanted to do better than I have here. But I do feel a bit of pride to be making it to the finish of the Tour [in Paris] considering the injuries I had after my crash. I’ve really had to fight.” (France Télévisions)
