VIDEO: "I will definitely try to be in the breakaway" says Thomas de Gendt

At the start of stage six of Paris-Nice, the day in the race that perhaps is most suited for a possible breakaway win at the start of the race, expert Thomas de Gendt has shared his thoughts on how he thinks the stage will go and talked about his current form.

"Im not feeling as good as I was hoping to be but I had corona one month ago after Saudi Tour and I could not ride my bike for one week, so I'm not at the level that I wanted to be but yeah it's like this," he said. "I feel my level going up everyday, so I hope to be in really good shape from Catalunya on and then go to the Giro with really good shape, so maybe being a bit less here now at this moment is actually good for me, if you think about the future and the Giro."

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Regarding today, he had clear ambitions when it comes to the day's goal: "I will definitely try to be in the breakaway and in the breakaway it will be hard, all day headwind. But I think the winner will be from the breakaway, it will be a big fight, a lot of teams only have three or four riders left so they all want to do something and it could be that it's like a 30-kilometer all out with the tanks everywhere, but then the break will be made with 10/15 guys. If nobody's close on GC it will go for the stage."

As to how the stage will be decided, he believes it's very open, and tactic choices will play a big role in figuring how the stage will will be won: "It's not a steep climb [Col de l'Espigoulier] so it's difficult to drop riders or to get dropped, but yeah if they start pushing 500 watts it's hard everywhere, but it's not like yesterday with the steep climbs, it's a bit easier to really attack, and it'll be more tactical in the final. It's also possible that they attack just before the climb in the flat part. When you get away with two, three guys from the break then it could already be good enough for the victory."