Van der Poel had "one of the toughest days ever" and had to take a gamble in the final: "A lot of riders had their eyes on me, of course"

"This was one of the toughest days on the bike ever," van der Poel said immediately after the stage in his flash interview. "I am pleased with my form again, but it was complicated to win in this position. Everything has to go 100% right. I had to gamble a little in the final, but all in all, it was a fun stage."

As the wearer of the green jersey, the best-ranked rider in the leading group, with two podium places already in this French stage race and the fact that van der Poel is one of the best riders in the world, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider had to, as he puts it, “take a gamble.” "Of course, a lot of riders had their eyes on me, but you also have to watch the others in the final," he said, hinting at his fellow breakaway riders. “It wasn’t up to me to react to everything, so I had to take a gamble in the final."

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The average speed of the riders showed that it was a tough day. "An average of 45 over a course with 3,000 meters of climbing says it all, I think," said van der Poel. In the 207-kilometer stage, the current world champion was on the attack for more than 170 kilometers. The 30-year-old rider's attack in this third stage had been planned.

"We thought the breakaway group would have a chance. And that happened, but we didn't get much of a gap. I think that was because of Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe). He was also in the group, which was a bummer. That meant we had to ride hard all day." Florian Lipowitz is a dangerous outsider for the GC, so the breakaway group with van der Poel and the German didn't get any freedom from the peloton.

Van der Poel concludes by emphasizing that he needs such challenging stages in the run-up to the Tour de France, which is the big goal this summer in a few weeks. "Having such tough days is important because it's difficult to replicate this in training."