"I would rather finish tenth than second" says Dylan Groenewegen after narrowly missing out on stage 11 victory at the Tour de France

After finishes of 8th, 5th and 4th, Dylan Groenewegen came the closest yet to taking a sixth Tour de France stage win of his career on stage 11 of the 2023 edition, narrowly losing out to Jasper Philipsen in the finale.

“It is not for nothing that he already wins four times, but we ourselves come to win and I did not do that again,” Groenewegen told Wielerflits in his post-stage interview, praising the dominance of Philipsen in this year's bunch sprints. “I haven't seen the sprint again yet, but I started and a faster one came over. I thought it was a long way away, but not much happened, so I went myself.”

Once Groenewegen launched, it looked for a moment as if the Team Jayco AlUla sprinter was certain to take the win. Sadly though, that was not to be the case. “I thought: it will work, but you can feel the last meters coming," he admits. “That is also the art of sprinting. I just went and that was just a little too long. In the end, he got over it.”

“Our patience is now being tested. I was absolutely convinced this morning that it was going to be okay and in the end it will be a second place. But if someone is faster, there's not much you can do about it," the Dutchman concludes. "Now it's going to be survival for a week, but we're going for it as far as Paris. I am really sick of this, then I would rather finish tenth than second.”