The French had a good race overall on this 5th stage of the Grande Boucle between Lille and Arenberg.
Guillaume Martin (FRA / Cofidis), 52nd in the fifth stage of the Tour de France, run between Lille and Arenberg on Wednesday: “I managed to hang on, to take the necessary risks. Between the noise of the public, the cries in the peloton, the braking, the dust… Sometimes, you couldn’t see ten meters away. It’s hard to describe, it really feels like boarding. It takes a bit of madness to get into this. But I’m satisfied. In the 2018 Tour, I had fallen, I had lost five minutes. There, I finish in the first platoon. The day will leave physical traces. We will have to recover because the transition with the mountains will be special. »
Romain Bardet (FRA / DSM), 29th on the stage: “It’s a good operation. Anyway, we’re here for the stages… We had a fall at some point but everyone had their share of bad luck today. The important thing was to continue to stay ahead. I really enjoyed riding on the cobblestones. We got out of it as best we could. It’s hard to control the events in a stage like this. We were perhaps a little lucky to fall back on Jumbo which was rolling, in the end there were no big gaps. Behind Pogacar, it was quite homogeneous, it’s still difficult to make differences on the flat. »
David Gaudu (FRA / Groupama-FDJ), 33rd on the stage: “Initially, I was stressed. But I felt good on the first cobbled sections and I was able to count on a great team. A big thank you because, without them, I would not be here. We are lucky to have great equipment and a great Stefan Küng who made my mark on the cobbles. »
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Warren Barguil (FRA / Arkea-Samsic), 39th on the stage: “We did a good job as a team to protect Nairo (Quintana). It’s a shame we didn’t have van Aert with us in our group. If he had been in front with us, we could have saved time on other riders in the general classification, apart from Pogacar. But the main thing is that we got through the falls and that Nairo wasted no time. »