Grischa Niermann, Jumbo-Visma coach: "We agreed at the beginning of the week that all 3 would go for it, it seems that everyone wants Sepp to stay in the lead"

Grischa Niermann, Jumbo-Visma's DS, talked about his team's display in the stage finishing on the Angliru that ended with Primoz Roglic winning ahead of Jonas Vingegaard and Sepp Kuss.

"It was a very very hard stage, very intense and we had good attacks from Evenepoel and Soler, I think the team dealt with them well and in the end we showed that we apparently have the three strongest riders in the race," he said.

He was asked about what Sepp Kuss told them when he was staying in the final straight of Roglic and Vingegaard. The manager claimed not to have heard anything or seen it on TV: "We couldn't hear him and we couldn't see anything either because the TV was going very very badly. We agreed at the beginning of the week that the 3 of us were going to go for it, it seems like everyone wants Sepp to stay the leader..."

"He is still the leader, but they also want to win the stages and everyone is allowed to try to do that and that's what happened. Great job and great win for Primoz." The tactics where then cleared, with the American having a hard task but managing to hold the red jersey by 8 seconds.

The difference now with respect to Juan Ayuso, Mikel Landa and Enric Mas is bigger with respect to the 3 Jumbo-Visma, I commented: "Bahrain did a great job and they dropped Ayuso and Mas, everyone but Landa, they gave us a more comfortable position. It's incredible to have these 3 riders so strong at the front doing what they are doing, but it has to be said that we couldn't be doing this without the other 5 riders who are giving their all."

He doesn't take the victory for granted: "There are still 2 hard mountain stages to come and a flat stage where something could happen, there are still 3 hard days to Madrid".