What can I say? I'm really happy. It's crazy. A really nice feeling. Obviously I had legs today. I really tried a lot of times and finally I went away on the descent. Of course it was really perfect and I'm really happy with it.
For sure tomorrow will be a really hard day because it's stage 20. We will all be super tired and it's a big challenge to do it. You want to do the best you can. I need to focus on myself and do my thing and then I can be happy.
It's not made for me tomorrow. For everyone it's the same. We all start at zero and tomorrow is another day and I will try my best. (Eurosport UK)
Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) - 6th on the stage, 2nd overall
Roglic was the strongest today, and a lot of respect for his victory. But he was flying downhill, and eventually I got dropped on a straight part just because he was on his tube and full in the slipstream of the motorbike. I was sprinting to his wheel and I couldn't get any closer. I just got dropped on the only straight part of the downhill. It's ridiculous really.
[Will you file a protest?]
It makes no sense anyway.
[Are you happy with what happened at the end?]
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
No, of course not. I'm fucking pissed. (NBC Sports)
Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) 2nd on the stage, overall race leader
We're really happy to get through that. We expected a hard day, and whew - it was really on. It was quite stressful when Landa went at one point and took a lot of time, and Bardet. Lotto-Jumbo rode hard. It was just on, on all day. To come through it - it was quite a fast descent, so it was nice to get through that in one piece.
I knew all I had to do was follow Tom Dumoulin. I knew he'd be chasing Roglic, as well. Roglic was strong, he was going today, but it was under control. Nico [Portal] was really good on the radio, he kept us calm. I'm really happy to tick that off.
It's obviously getting closer, but we have one more day. I need to do a really good TT now. I have a nice advantage, but I still have to be on the ball and do a good time trial, and we'll see.
It's never comfortable. Even today, we knew it was going to be hard and it was super hard. Tomorrow's going to be super hard as well.
[Do you like the TT course?] I don't know if I like it, ask me tomorrow afternoon. It's hard, there are a few kicks for sure, and the last climb after 25k, that's really hard so you have to sort of save a bit of legs for that. It's a challenging course. (NBC Sports)
We always want to race and also for stage victories. We showed ourselves today with the initiative to attack, and we know Primoz is so good on the uphill and he couldn't get away but took some time on the downhill, so it was perfect.
I said I would try early on the climb and he would try at the end, and that's what we did. I think Primoz is going to win tomorrow, for sure. (Eurosport UK)
Egan Bernal (Team Sky) - Paced Chris Froome on final climbs
In the end it's my first Tour de France. I'm really happy with the work I've done today, but I have some motivation for the remaining couple of days.
Tomorrow is a big time trial, so I don't think anyone is going to sit back and relax. We've got to take on Dumoulin and nothing is certain yet. We'll have a better idea tomorrow, but we're not going to start celebrating just yet. (Eurosport UK)
I felt good and today. I wanted to win for my team on the stage because they've worked for me a lot. I tried, but I'm happy with today's condition and I believed I needed to stay with the big guys. Today was a hard stage, but if you never try you never win.
I really felt good today and I've started to feel good in this last week, and it's typical people start talking about me when I lose GC, but this is me and cycling is really hard. We still have the Vuelta. We have two more stages in the Tour de France and maybe Peter [Sagan] wins in Paris. (Eurosport UK)
Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) - 4th on the stage, 8th overall
It was a difficult day for everyone. It's a group of very tired men trying to race their bikes. It's all part of it with the attacking and aggression there. When we look back on it, it'll probably look like it was fun, but I'm very, very tired right now.
I didn't know it was a headwind sprint, and obviously Roglic got away on the downhill with the TV motorbike, but that's not his fault.
It's a pity we couldn't go for the stage victory. It was in the back of my mind and that's why I held on for so long on the climb. It was a bit dodgy going down there in the mist, but that's what makes it the Tour. (Eurosport UK)
Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) - 3rd on the stage, 7th overall
I believed I could get a victory today right until the finish, but Roglic was too strong. I fought until the end and I'm very disappointed. I wanted to attack from the Tourmalet right until the finish, but I didn't have the legs from the beginning of the Tour and I really wanted a stage win.
When you lose 50 metres on someone like Roglic, he's just too good. It's not the legs. I haven't had any luck this Tour and I didn't have it today either. You have to believe, but I don't know if I could necessarily do it. The Tourmalet was really tough. It was the best stage to do something, and we definitely gave it a go with Landa, but in the end we couldn't quite get there. (Eurosport UK)
Mikel Landa (Movistar) - 7th on the stage, 6th overall
I’m happy with my Tour. It had a bit of everything, good and bad days. Today was a lot of fun. It was like a last waltz. It was a good day.
I can’t complain about my Movistar team. We started with three leaders. I didn’t have to stop for others, but the crash on the cobbles hurt me. My back was painful in the Alps and it wasn’t easy to be good every day. (RAI)
