Cort Nielsen win "takes some pressure off the team" says Neilson Powless

Neilson Powless was, at the start of stage 11 at the Tour de France, 11th in the overall classification and ninth out of those who are contesting it. Now EF Education-Easypost's only GC cards, the responsibility lies on the American who is giving it a shot.

After the stage 10 finale in Megève Powless was clear on how it was necessary to race now to keep the ambition alive: “For now, it’s pretty straightforward: just hanging around with the GC riders as best I can. If I’m performing well and with the GC group, then that’s perfect, and I’ll keep doing that. But if I end up losing time, maybe I’ll lose enough to be able to go in the breakaway.”

As a puncheur, he was expected to come to the race with stage-winning ambitions, but after a successful breakaway in Arenberg, he came very close to the yellow jersey. The rest of his race will depend on how the first high mountain stages go, but the American revealed the team is under less pressure after Magnus Cort Nielsen's win.

“I think it just takes some pressure off the team as a whole. You’ve got to get your first one before you can get some real momentum going. Hopefully this opens the door for more," he pointed out. “Every day we set out with a plan, and we pretty much nailed our plans in almost every stage so far".

“The win hadn’t come yet but we were just trying to be faithful that it would work out for us in the end if we kept executing, and today it finally came together for us, so happy days," Powless described. Having had the Dane present in several breakaways and also leading the KOM classification for most the Tour so far, the team's race is so far a success.

“This hopefully means the start of an upward trend for our team, some upward momentum. Magnus has been pretty incredible on the Tour so far, putting on a show for the fans and representing our team really well, and I’m so happy he was able to show his stuff at the finish too," Powless concluded.