"I started just two or three seconds too late to catch Wout, but he deserves this victory so much" - Remco Evenepoel misses out on his fourth stage win

Remco Evenepoel finished second on Saturday in the penultimate stage of the Vuelta a Espana. The Belgian leader of Soudal Quick-Step cut his teeth on Wout Poels in the final phase and narrowly missed out on his fourth stage victory of this Vuelta a Espana.

"I'm actually happy," the winner of the mountain jersey concluded afterwards. "I think I made one mistake, or rather: a miscalculation. I was a bit surprised because Wout started his sprint so early, but I still managed to come back very strong. In the end, the finish was just ten meters too early for me," Evenepoel noted in his flash interview.

"I started just two or three seconds too late and that meant I couldn't get on Wout's wheel, but he deserves this victory so much," Evenepoel compliments his Dutch rival. "I can be satisfied with three stage wins, three second places and the mountain jersey after this Vuelta."

"We took control of the race in the last sixty kilometers," says Evenepoel, who had three teammates in the day's break. "I told them that we had to take control, otherwise we would have attacks against us early. So we increased the pace a little on each climb and then we saw what would come of it at the end."

"I knew it was steep, but I didn't know that the cobblestones on that final climb were that bad," said Evenepoel. "I had a hard time on that part, but I managed to come back at my own pace. Maybe it was a small mistake that I stopped riding when I got twenty meters into the valley. In the end it wasn't a bad day, because we worked very well," Evenepoel reflects.