While Lotto celebrates De Lie's form, van Aert is left with "legs to win": "Improving is only fun during training"

“It was full throttle all day, really tough,” De Lie admitted immediately after the finish. In the end, I was in the second group, and we spent a considerable amount of time trying to reach the front. I finished fourth, and I'm happy with that. We always strive for more, but I gave it my all, and this is the best version of cycling I've achieved. When it gets tactical, that's what we love. Even when the gap is 20 seconds and you can't close it."

After De Lie suffered a major setback in the spring due to physical and, above all, mental problems, Lotto is seeing the old Arnaud again. “We've said it before: a good Arnaud is more than just a sprinter. He also likes to race. And now that he's feeling good again, he's doing just that. We would have signed up for this before the Tour. This is the Arnaud De Lie we know, with speed and power in his legs,” Lotto team boss Kurt De Wouwer told HLN.

Van Aert was less cheerful. On day 8, he was still happy with second place, behind Jonathan Milan, in a sprint, but on day 11, he said he had the legs to win after a wonderful day of attacking. “It was a hard stage today. It wasn’t easy to make it into the break. I succeeded in the end, but I had already spent a lot of energy before that. I think that cost me in the finale," he said via the Visma | Lease a Bike channels.

The presence of Mathieu van der Poel was, of course, interesting. Van Aert felt that the Dutchman from Alpecin-Deceuninck still had something left in the tank. “We were watching each other, but I just couldn’t follow when he pushed on the last climb. Maybe if I had, we could have bridged to the leaders – although we had already tried and failed to do that in the kilometers before the climb.”

“Yes, I'm very disappointed. Because I had the legs to win,” Van Aert told HLN. “I'm here to win stages, to get results. Improving is only fun during training. I had already wasted a lot of energy getting into the breakaway. I didn't have enough left in the final. Mathieu and I were keeping a close eye on each other. With him in the group, you're always torn between two thoughts. You want to catch up, but you also want to save something for the final.”