"It was an incredible day. The whole day, queen stage, it was really hard, and I did it.
"It's very very special. I’m a time trial specialist but today I showed I can do more, and I showed it last year at the Vuelta. I’m so so happy, it’s incredible."
"It was actually quite nice, it was like being back in Wales. It was hard with the heat so the rain was quite nice.
"It was hard to control with Valverde going away but we stuck together well as a unit, and all came down to last climb, and in the end it wasn't hard enough for big gaps.
"It's only stage 9 and a lot can happen in Grand Tours. We’re in a good position. Everyone within a couple of minutes is a threat."
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Oleg Tinkov (Tinkoff team owner)
"It was not a surprise to me, because I am in the team and we knew that Alberto [Contador] was not doing well. When he attacked we were surprised and then he started coming back. But what can I say, it is disappointing of course, but the race goes on and we are going to fight for the mountain jersey and the green jersey and to try to win some stages.
"Rafal [Majka] is a fighter. He is not feeling well because he's been in two consecutive breakaways, but he was good today. I hope he will have his mountain jersey now.
"Our team didn’t have a good last five days. Our captain was struggling and we had to be around him. It was not an easy time, even though Peter [Sagan] was in yellow we had to sort of manage two goals: to look after Alberto and still manage to keep the yellow jersey. Now, to me, it's kind of a relief, because Alberto is going home to prepare for the Vuelta."
Mark Reef (Giant-Alpecin director)
"It was a tough stage. We were a thinking how Tom [Dumoulin] would go compared to the rest of the riders. But in the moments on the steep sections of the climb, he was doing his own pace, and when he was on the less steep sections his pace was coming back again. The moment that he went, and had a gap of 10 seconds, we thought he needed to have really good legs to take it.
"I think Tom took the pace he could handle until he got to the top, that is one of his strong points. It was a time trial all the way to the top and he finished it in a great way.
"With a steep climb it is not easy to stay in rhythm but with this climb, and these percentages it was a climb that suited him. We spoke about it this morning and we thought he had a chance to go for it. It’s great that in a strong group like this, who were not the weakest riders with guys like Pinot, Costa, that Tom could keep them at 40 seconds, he did a great job."
