Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ): “It has been a very hard day for me”

April 30 ^th 2024 - 18:32 [GMT + 2]

It has been a very hard day for me. It was not really my day, as I had a lot of pain all over my body. I did my best in order to defend this Mountains jersey, but it was not the easiest day for me mentally, for sure. We rode fast up the categorised climb, and the bunch was reduced down to 40 riders. Afterwards, everything came back together because of the headwind. From then on, we kept a steady pace towards the finish line. We are all aware that there are several hard days to come, so I believe it’s good that today it all came down to a bunch sprint. I am happy to keep the polka dot jersey. It’s always nice to be on a leader jersey during a big race. We hope to keep it for more days.