"It’s perhaps even more fun not to have something and to be able to pursue it" - Frank van den Broek has no regrets about letting teammate Romain Bardet have the yellow jersey

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL couldn't have dreamed of a better start to Tour de France that what they witnessed in Rimini. While Romain Bardet got to wear a yellow jersey for the first time in his career, it was his young teammate Frank van den Broek who received the 'hero of the day' badge.

"I still can't really believe what we did," he tells WielerFlits. "I really had a great day. I don't think I made any mistakes. Everything went well on the descents, I was able to keep up well on the climbs and I was also able to really pick up speed on the flat. It was just a great day."

Was it from the beginning of the stage that Van den Broek believed he could achieve something big? "Shortly after the start I noticed that I was good. I was able to jump along a few times and then recover from that effort. Then I thought: it will be a really good day. That was quite a difference from the days before the Tour. I don't know what caused it, maybe it was the nervousness, but I didn't really feel great. To be honest, I was surprised that I had such good legs."

One of the side effects of his success was an extra media attention over next couple days. Is Frank van den Broek still trending? "Not that much anymore," he admits. "That weekend I received a lot of messages, but that has completely stopped again. And to be honest, I think that’s fine. At that moment it was fun, but pretty soon I thought: it’s enough. I didn't start cycling for all the attention. But just because I like it. Now the full focus is on the next opportunities."

The 23-year-old Tour debutant was also incredibly close to wearing a yellow jersey after the first stage. "Of course that thought has passed by at some point, but I don’t regret it. I use it as motivation. It’s perhaps even more fun not to have something and to be able to pursue it, than to be allowed to achieve something."