Quinten Hermans happy about his third place from breakaway: "I finally feel healthy again and have regained the good legs I had before"

Behind phenomenal Julian Alaphilippe, it was between Quinten Hermans and Jhonatan Narváez for the second place and the Ecuadorian champion ultimately had more in the tank. The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider thus settles for third place on the day, which gives the Belgian a lot of optimism into the rest of Giro d'Italia.

"It was a super difficult stage. There was a lot of climbing and there were strong riders at the front," Hermans said afterwards at Eurosport. "We had decided as a team not to get involved in the attempts for the early breakaway in the first forty kilometers of the day. Only then did things start to go uphill, and that tactic worked out well."

Hermans secured a spot among the thirty attackers, but complained beforehand of a bad feeling in his legs. "But today I had the opposite feeling of the past few days. I feel healthy again and have regained the good legs I had before."

Had the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider hoped to catch Alaphilippe back on the last climb? "Julian ultimately rode very strongly," says Hermans. "And for second place, Jhonatan was a few percent better than me. We have worked together fully to come back."