Carlos Rodríguez reacts to Tour de France stage win: "I was going to do the best possible stage, whether it was looking for the podium or not"

Carlos Rodríguez has achieved what seemed impossible: to win a stage in a direct fight with Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. The Spaniard took advantage of the fight of the favorites to win the stage of the Tour de France on the flat stretch before the descent of the Joux Plane to Morzine:

"It was a day of suffering from the beginning, but it was worth it. I won and I can't even believe it. I thought it was not going to be possible, I was able to get it thanks to the work of the team, they have been '10' and if it were not for them it would not be possible."

He punctured before the start of the climb to Ramaz and, despite this and a bad feeling at the beginning of the stage, he was able to win:

"The feeling at the beginning was not the best, I had a puncture before the col de Ramaz, but it didn't take its toll on me. On Joux Plane I focused on doing the best I could and on the descent I focused on riding as fast as possible."

He had a great detail talking about his rival for the podium, Jai Hindley, who fell in the massive crash at the beginning of the stage and wished him the best and a full fight to the end for the podium:

"I was going to do the best possible stage, whether it was looking for the podium or not, I don't know how much the crash affected him, I don't like things like that. I wish him a good recovery and hopefully we'll have a nice fight until Paris. I hope to keep it up."