I was really looking for a victory because I'm really going good in this last part of the season. After my crash that brought me out of time in the Tour de France, I was just thinking about coming here and winning stages. Two days ago we did a perfect, smart job with Yves Lampaert, and took the win and the jersey. Today we decided to have my time.
The guys were amazing. We got some help from Aqua Blue, Lotto and UAE at the beginning, but then when things went a little bit bananas as it always does in cycling, they just [maintained] the situation and we got everyone pulling - Tim Declerq pulled the whole day yesterday, he pulled the whole day today. Then basically everybody pulled. Together with Lampy, Alaphilippe really built up a nice (lead-out) to the finish.
I'm really proud to win this with the Quick-Step team and all the names we have before because next year it's all going to change. I won in the Tour with them, I won in the Giro with them, and now in the Vuelta also. I'm really proud to make all these presents with this team.
I think everyone was afraid of some time splits. It was worth staying up there and spending a bit of energy just to be up front in case of splits today. Obviously my teammates did a massive job in helping me be up there.
(On being in the leader's jersey) It's good - it's a great feeling to be back in red after six years. It's a huge privilege to be in this position.
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We'll get to tomorrow, tomorrow. I'm taking it one day at a time and just enjoying being in the red jersey.
It feels good (being best young rider), but it's a shame there isn't a jersey. It's still early days. We're still feeling good. I lost a bit of time yesterday. As long as one of us finishes on the podium or as close as possible, I think we can come out of the Vuelta with a success. There's a long way to go, we will see what happens.
(How to race with multiple GC leaders?) Pretty easy really, we just try our best, and if one of us has good legs on the day then they can try something. Early in the race, obviously we're going to have more cards than anyone and we can use that to our advantage. We can use a different tactic than other teams. Hopefully, we can get a nice result from that.
Diego Rubio (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) - most aggressive rider
It is what it is, we couldn't do more.
You always have to keep the belief, until the final moment, and fight. We did the max, both of us. You know it's hard, but we were only nine kilometres away from pulling it off. For sure, we'll try again.
I'm alright, I think. I'll find out a bit more in the morning, but for now I'm hopefully ok.
Even after I crashed when I was riding [the finish] alone, it looked pretty sketchy. My crash was just because I got caught in the gutter. It was my own mistake. It did look a technical finish, I don't know if there were any crashes afterwards.
