"It feels amazing to climb again on the podium of the Tour de France. It was a goal of ours. We lost the 2nd place by so little but we have the polka-dot jersey and that’s an extra-bonus. We always kept in mind that we wanted to take every opportunity, for the stages, for the jerseys… So it’s very nice to be in the place I’m in right now, especially after the very hard last two days. The Tourmalet gave me an amazing feeling.
The team has changed this year with Mag [Magnus Bäckstedt, the sports manager] and a lot of new young riders. They changed the whole dynamics. When you have the same people around you, you get into some patterns and you miss the extra trigger to aim for more. I love working with young riders. Once you’ve spent a couple of years in the peloton, you’ve seen some crashes, you experience failure, and you lose some confidence. The younger girls calculate less, worry less, they see less obstacles… And it brought me back to better times.
I’m also happy I’m getting closer to my 30s because every race I do I feel like it’s the hardest race of my life. Every year it gets harder, faster, more professional… I can’t imagine what the level will be like 10 years from now!"
