"I feel like I could have won the stage" - Jordi Meeus sour about losing to Jonathan Milan in Valence

It hasn't been an ideal Tour de France for Jordi Meeus so far, having crashed earlier in the race and with just an 8th place from stage 9 to speak of. With Danny van Poppel not at the start this morning, there weren't many reasons for optimism, but the big sprinter surged in the rain to arrive just shy of green jersey Jonathan Milan.

Afterwards, the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe felt like there was more possible today: "I'm really disappointed. I feel like if I launched first, I would win the stage," Meeus sounded fairly down after finishing second in Valence.

"I think I rode perfectly in the finale, I was always very well placed, away from the chaos and the crashes. But hats off to Milan, he had a very good sprint. I was really close to the finish line, but it wasn't enough."

The winner on Champs-Élysées from 2023 doesn't dare to dream about repeating his success, fully aware it's not the same stage he won two years ago. "It's not sure if there will really be two sprints left before the end of the Tour, you never know. So to have a real opportunity to win and not to capitalize on it is very disappointing."

Although Tim Merlier was held back by a crash, Belgians had multiple cards in the mix today and Arnaud De Lie came close to joining compatriot Meeus on a virtual podium of the day.

"I think I needed to be more in Milan's wheel and not be next to him, because when he started his sprint, I touched his wheel, and that made me lose all my speed," the Lotto sprinter explained what costed him a better result.

"It's disappointing, because I think there was a way to do better than fourth. But you have to look at the positive: even if there was a crash, I did quite well," explains the former Belgian champion. "I'm not saying I would have won, but I would have had a much better chance of being able to do something compared to the previous sprints."

Not all is lost yet, De Lie says more optimistically. Unlike many others, the 23-year-old looks forward to Montmartre stage in Paris. "There's still a chance. Maybe not a bunch sprint, but I think that with the legs that the team has, and that I have, we can arrive with big ambitions."