Another podium in a Monument, I shouldn’t complain about that but I came to win today and with a puncture in a really bad moment you never know what could’ve happened. It took me out of the chance of fighting for a win. I’m not saying that I would’ve been able to win but at least I could’ve given it a better shot. All in all I finished with a podium in a Monument and it was a good classic campaign.
At that moment [after the puncture] you try and get the best out of it because you never know what can happen. We heard that Tadej crashed and we thought maybe we will make it back to him but you never know with this race. Anything can happen so keep fighting and maybe it turns around, but this year it didn’t, it was not my day. Shit happens. Mathieu was so impressive to win three times in a row. You have to take your hat off to him. The way he’s racing is really, really impressive so congrats. After I punctured, I tried everything to come back at that moment. There were still three guys ahead so we weren’t even racing for the podium so we did everything we could to fight and make it back and fight for a podium.
I heard [Wout van Aert & Florian Vermeersch] talk together and I’m not stupid. I don’t speak Flemish but I can use my ears and my brain and I had the feeling they wanted to attack, but I tried to keep the speed high and give them the impression that I was ready for anything. I tried to keep them on one side so they only had one side to attack on and use the track as much as possible. I learned this on the track with Michael Mørkøv.
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