"Full gas all the way," was how Van Aert summed up his day. "[It was] pretty chaotic in the beginning with this crash where Jonas was behind, it was hard to play the right tactic because any way we wanted to be in the break, but we also somehow wanted to slow down so he could come back in the bunch, so it was a bit tricky."
We had a lot of goals, number one was to win the GC. Number two was to win the race, number three was team GC. QOM was our next goal too, and we got that one too so we're happy," Stephens told organisers at the finish on Tuesday.