Tejay van Garderen beat Romain Bardet by only two seconds due to a puncture which moved van Garderen up to 5th place overall. It is really hard to say, but I think today it would have been hard for anybody to fight me.” I still have the power after three weeks. “A lot of guys couldn’t start today out of the real contenders, like Wiggins, like Cancellara,” he said, “but to be honest I made a really good race today. However he acknowledged that several key names were missing but said he felt that his ride was still good enough to have beaten them if they were in the race. Tony Martin was the favorite coming into the ITT on stage 20. I’ll go to the Vuelta with ambitions too.” The Tour de France is important but it’s not the only race. Fourth of the Tour de France, it’s a good result. I feel sorry for my fans that I’m not on the final podium. When you give it all, you can’t have regrets. During the last week, I’ve suffered the difficult weather conditions we’ve endured. I’ve tried to do well but my body responded ‘no’. I was aware all the way long that I was losing the podium. He said after the stage: “More or less, I knew what was going on.
I have a feeling of mission accomplished and a lot of joy today.”Īlejandro Valverde came 28th in the stage and secured fourth overall. The withdrawals of Froome and Contador opened a range of possibilities and I started dreaming about this second place. Peraud said after the stage: “It’s an enormous satisfaction.
Second overall, Jean-Christophe Perayd was over the moon on the finish line. It has been a great race though and tomorrow I will go back into my position in the pure sprint formation ago hopefully help propel Marcel to victory like last year.” Compared to 2013 I think I have found the Tour overall to be harder this year, but I think that is because I am stronger now and much more involved. It’s mentally really hard as you can’t reach the power values that you usually can, and you can’t seem to push yourself over the limit either, yet it still hurts just as much. He said, “The effort is very different here after 20 days of racing. Recently crowned Dutch national TT champion Tom Dumoulin races to second on stage 20. That’s the biggest memory I’ve kept from my first participation: the lap of honour, the enormous number of people, Paris’ monuments… I’ll try to savour my victory as much as I can. It’s difficult to ride the Tour but the beauty of it is to cycle on the Champs-Elysées. I haven’t realised yet how big it is to win the Tour de France. I’m pleased to have set the fourth best time. It required a big effort to ride the course. I was looking forward to reach the finish.
It was a perfect one for specialists like Tony Martin. I’ve felt a bit of tension today but it’s normal I guess. He said after the stage, “I’m very happy. Vincenzo Nibali has the overall classification wrapped up before the ITT even began. Read the interview with Van Garderen after the race: “I have ten more years to try to win the Tour”.Įnjoy the photos from stage 20 courtesy of BrakeThrough Media (follow on Instagram and Twitter) and Cor Vos. Read the interview with Tony Martin after the race: “Today it would have been hard for anybody to fight me”.
Read the full race report and results from Stage 20 of the 2014 Tour de France here.
Tony Martin’s time trial win was as assured as Nibali’s overall victory with the current World Champion making his way over the undulating 54km course with an average speed of 48.8km/h and netting his second stage victory in this year’s Tour. The fans would have loved to see today’s individual time trial come down to a fight for precious seconds for the General Classification, but since Vincenzo Nibali’s Tour de France victory was assured, stage 20 was all about the battle for podium honours with only 15 seconds between second and fourth place.įor the first time in 30 years the French were able to reclaim their race with Jean-Christophe Peraud and Thibaut Pinot time trialling their way into second and third place respectively.