"It was quite a stressful day, waiting in the bus all day" - Laurens de Plus excels for INEOS on unique stage at the Giro d'Italia

What had been expected to be a massive day that shook up the general classification at the Giro d'Italia, partly due to bad weather shortening the stage and partly due to the infernal pace set by Laurens de Plus at the front of the peloton, the favourites stayed relatively quiet.

"It was quite a stressful day, waiting in the bus all day," de Plus who sits 9th in the general classification himself told Eurosport in a post-stage interview. "In the end we delivered a good team performance. EF Education pressured us from the start. However, we kept it well under control. Later also with Pavel Sivakov and Ben Swift."

Leading the Maglia Rosa group up the final climb, de Plus steadied the gap to the breakaway who ended up winning the stage and kept the GC riders under control. "On the final climb we then maintained a solid pace and I'm happy that Geraint keeps the pink," says de Plus. "The pace was very high, so I'm not surprised there were no big attacks. With such a high pace it is difficult to attack. That was a good strategy for us."

Geraint Thomas was full of praise for de Plus following the stage and the Belgian admits that it means a lot to hear a former Tour de France winner say such nice words about him. "'It is a nice reward when a leader like G speaks such words," he concludes.