On the Tour's first day in the mountains, Woods made an impressive solo performance on the penultimate climb
of the day, the steep Col de Romme.
"I knew I was on a good day when we went up the first KOM climb already, and I got a confirmation of that when I was able to bridge across to the front group on the next climb. I'm proud of myself for that one. In the past, I would have given up on that one, but I knew that if I just kept pushing, I would get across and be able to recover.
"After that, I started focusing on both the stage win and the KOM jersey. It was good to have Rik (Verbrugghe, DS) in my ear, giving me some pointers; to play it conservatively on the first cat 1 and then go after it on the next one. I saw Yates attack on the second cat 1 and I knew that if I countered, I would get a lot of freedom and be able to just ride my own pace.
"On the last climb, I knew that I just had to keep my own tempo not to blow up, so that's what I did. Teuns came back so fast and I really suffered, trying to hang on. I can't be disappointed though. I did the best race I possibly could. I covered as many moves as possible early on and I was aggressive. I raced to win and sometimes when you race to win, you're going to lose, but at least I tried."
-Michael Woods. 3rd place on Stage 8. 2nd in the KOMs classification
Rigoberto Uran quietly moves up to 4th on GC
Pogacar descends the Col de Colombier
"Before the last three climbs, I said to my teammates: 'Let's try and break the race,' and we did it... I saw that everybody was suffering... I just took off and tried to pace myself to the finish line. I'm pretty happy."
-Tadej Pogacar
Look back: Knocking on the wall: The Teka Team and Pedro Delgado at the Berlin Wall, 1987 Tour de France.
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