Mathieu van der Poel reacts after Tour de France stage victory

Mathieu van der Poel claimed an emphatic stage victory at the Tour de France on Sunday. The Dutchman spent the entire day on the attack before finishing the job perfectly following a demanding stage through the Massif Central. These were his first words after the finish in Ussel.

“It was an incredibly tough day,” Van der Poel said as he caught his breath following the shortened stage, which had been affected by the extreme heat in the Cantal. “The start of the Tour wasn’t great for our team, but I think we stayed calm, as we always do.”

“We have a really good group here, and we continued to believe that things would turn around. Maybe not today, maybe in the second week or perhaps in the third week... But it feels fantastic to head into the first rest day with a victory,” said Van der Poel, who had also delivered a strong lead-out for Jasper Philipsen on Saturday.

“Things definitely went better today than during the first few days. I was really suffering then and even found it difficult to recover from the flatter stages. I already felt slightly better over the past two days. Those were easier stages, of course, but today I finally had the legs to give it everything,” added Van der Poel, who raced at the front from the beginning of the stage until the finish.

In the end, he beat Pidcock and Johannessen. “I wasn’t so sure that I could do it. I had already used a lot of energy trying to keep the breakaway alive because the peloton was putting us under serious pressure. The roads were also terrible for a breakaway, with a headwind throughout the day. But we really fought for it, and I’m incredibly happy that I was able to finish it off.”

“The Van der Poel festival has begun,” the interviewer suggested after the finish. “Maybe it was only a one-day festival, but...” Van der Poel replied with a laugh. “It was a good one, at least!”