Emmanuel Hubert: "We wrote a beautiful chapter on this Tour"
6th in the general classification, 2nd at the summit of the Granon, Nairo Quintana has worn -with the precious help of his team-mates- the colours of Arkéa-Samsic on this 109th Tour de France. One regret: Warren Barguil did not start the day after the stage of Alpe d’Huez, after having shown some good skills at the beginning of the Alps.
“It has been many years since I have been so close to the podium in the Tour. I have the feeling that I could do it, but I caught a cold a few days ago in a hotel. Health is your biggest rival over three weeks of racing. I was then one day good, one day not so good and it was this cold that I think kept me out of the fight for the podium. I am only human and as everybody knows, in the Tour everything counts. I am satisfied with my 6th place overall, the team worked hard. My team-mates are young, but they learn quickly. The group is good, promising. I enjoy being with them, because they listen, are full of life and we are a close team. I feel young among them. They give me motivation. I also want to thank the team staff who are a driving force behind my success and that of the Arkéa-Samsic team in this Tour 2022, and to underline the professionalism of their men and women behind the scenes, which is worthy of the greatest teams.”
“What I remember most about this Tour 2022 is the cohesion of the Arkéa-Samsic team around its leader Nairo Quintana. The collective effort made this individual performance possible. The riders taking part in this 109th edition of the Tour have together written a first chapter of hope with this 6th place in Paris. Our initial ambitions were to achieve a good general classification and we did it. We even dreamt of a podium, and who knows, with the presence of Warren Barguil next to Nairo, it could have been achieved. Our objectives were double with a stage win. Again we are very close. Nairo finished 2nd at the summit of the Granon. It follows a magnificent raid by Warren on this Alpestre stage. I also keep in mind the cobblestone stage with five of our riders at the front, which proves the quality of this team, composed of several neophytes on the Tour, but especially of riders with a future, like Matîs Louvel, who was in contact with his leader in the Pyrenean climbs, proof of his freshness at the end of the Tour and of his good recovery qualities. We finish this Tour, finally, 1st UCI ProTeam both in the individual and team classifications. This is a great reward and our goal in the future will be to compete with the best UCI WorldTour teams by being part of those teams with this label”.