Giro d'Italia: Stage 19 finish line quotes

25 May 2018 04:58
Chris Froome (Team Sky) - stage winner, new race leader I don't think I've ever attacked with 80k to go like that on my own and gone all the way to the finish but the team did such a fantastic job to set that up for me. It was going to take something really special today to try, and first of all, get rid of Simon [Yates] and get away from [Tom] Dumoulin and [Domenico] Pozzovivo. To go from fourth to first - I wasn't going to do that on the last climb alone, so I had to try from far out and Colle delle Finestre was the perfect place - gravel roads I guess reminds me a bit of riding on the roads in Africa. It just felt good and I said it's now or never, I have to try. It's great - obviously there's still a really hard day tomorrow, but the legs are feeling good and I've been feeling better and better as the races has gone on. Even today up front I gave it everything but I also tried to stay within my limits and tried to stay within myself. Hopefully we can finish this off tomorrow. Nico Portal (Team Sky directeur sportif) It's amazing. We forget it's Chris Froome. He's been battling with Contador, Quintana and Nibali and these guys can do this type of thing. Obviously we still believed it could happen. You've seen it the past two weeks on the media, everyone's saying 'what are you gonna do guys?'.ADVERTISEMENT We keep on pushing, Froomey didn't want to stop and kept on fighting until the end. No matter how strong they are, there's only a few champions in the world that can do this. It wasn't 20 seconds, it was 3 minutes 20 seconds or something, it's unbelievable. It's hard to know where it stands. Most of the time we need to ride defensively because we're in the leader's jersey but it was different here, a different situation. He needed to build up to this because of crashes. The way he rode and the team rode today was amazing. We saw some weakness yesterday in the GC contenders and our team has become stronger and stronger. Today on the Finestre we decided it was an all or nothing day, so I said you know there isn't much tactics today, it was all about the legs. It was unbelievable what he did." (Eurosport) Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) - third overall I felt much better today - this was a really crazy stage, that's how the story of the Giro is written. Now I'm hoping to have good legs again tomorrow, because my dream has always been to make the podium in Rome. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) - best young rider David Brailsford (Team Sky principal) You can read more at Cyclingnews.com.read full article

Source: Cycling News