Yvon Ledanois: "Warren has shown once again that he has character”
6th in Harstad, Warren Barguil finishes 8th in the final overall classification of the Arctic Race of Norway.
Photo GettyImages
On the line
“I was on a better day today than yesterday. The colleagues did a great job to make the race as hard as possible. I waited for the sprint in the climb, unfortunately I was a bit badly placed at the foot, and the peloton didn’t catch the breakaway, otherwise there were bonuses at stake to try to move up a bit more in the overall classification. Finally I finished 8th, which is a disappointment for me and the team. I know that since the crash I wasn’t able to ride as much as I wanted, but what is important is that my legs are coming back little by little”.
“We had a very good team here, united. We tried some things, but it didn’t work out for us, but today Warren was 6th and climbed up the overall classification. But we can learn a lot from this event. Today we would have liked a harder stage from the beginning, because there was a difficulty listed from the first kilometres, and a breakaway started from kilometre zero without it fighting too much, contrary to the other days. We were locked in at that moment. Our objective was to make the race as hard as possible on the final circuit in order to favour Warren’s plans, which we did”.
The debrief
“Warren has character and showed it again today. He fought hard and stayed in position on the final climb of this final stage of the Arctic Race of Norway to take sixth place, and 8th place overall.
I am sure that his temperament and his will not to give up will pay off. I would also like to congratulate all his team-mates for their involvement during these four days of racing, they have met the expectations that I would like to see on a collective level. It is by running like this, without ever letting our guard down, that we will very quickly find reasons to be satisfied”.