Biniam Girmay can already celebrate the Points classification victory: "The only thing we needed to do was survive and reach the finish line"

Who would've thought that Biniam Girmay will bring the green jersey to Nice, let alone take a stage, before the Grand Départ in Florence. But the Eritrean stepped up from his shadow these past three weeks, and not only he took three stages, but also won the Points classification ahead of Jasper Philipsen.

For Intermarché - Wanty this is a tremendous success. The Belgian team entered the race with two possible leaders for sprints, but after Girmay's initial success, Gerben Thijssen had to switch to a supporting role. "From the start of the Tour I’ve had such incredible teammates you know. All the staff, the team manager, the bosses, I want to say thank you to them, because from the start we had a great atmosphere, good team spirit. Especially the riders, they are super nice guys and we don’t have time to celebrate tomorrow on the time trial, so we said ok guys we have enough time, so let’s celebrate now, because for sure we deserve it," Girmay told organisers after stage 20.

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"We did such an incredible job to protect this jersey. We gave everything we had. We have really the smallest budget of the World Tour teams, so to have three incredible victories and the green jersey, it’s just amazing. Especially for Laurenz Rex and Hugo Page it’s the first Grand Tour for them and they are just great riders and I’m happy to have them."

"If you see it on paper the last two days were incredibly hard days and we could not gain any points and also Sunday it’s not in Paris, so you also can’t gain any, so the only thing we needed to do was survive and reach the finish line. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about the green jersey, I just wanted to enjoy my day and survive."

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