Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb)
“When I see the result, it’s pretty good, eh? I was fighting with myself. I actually didn’t have a good feeling but apparently it was really fast. A lot of the GC riders didn’t have a good feeling. In my last TT’s I gave up a little bit when I wasn’t feeling good, and then I was always disappointed after. Now I thought ‘I don’t give up, I go full to the line’, and it was more than enough.
“That’s a nice gap to go into the mountains, but in the Vuelta I lost several minutes in one day. It can happen so quickly in the mountains when you have one bad day. The Giro is far far far from over.”
Nairo Quintana (Movistar)
“We lost more time than we expected, though my legs felt well today. It was a very windy course, which also played against me, and we always had in mind that Dumoulin could make a big gain today, which he proved with an excellent performance – he’s just shown how great of a specialist he is. He’s showing also great form on the climbs, so he probably is the biggest contender for pink from now. Nibali also fared really strong, and the forces against the other main GC guys seem to be pretty much balanced. We must continue to keep an eye on everyone.
“We’ll wait and see how we can build on this, seek for new strategies and gain terrain back for the next few days to try and get that Maglia Rosa back. It’s always hard to swallow when you lose a leader’s jersey, but I’ve got strong hopes: our team is fantastic, I’m in good condition and, with all mountains remaining in this Giro, we must keep digging and try to bounce things back.”
Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida)
“I’m happy. I did a good race and above all I recovered important seconds compared to my rivals, especially Nairo Quintana.”
“It was a very fast race and I managed to keep a good pace throughout the race. And now we go ahead and tomorrow we will have a very challenging stage. “
Geraint Thomas (Team Sky)
“I’m lucky to still be in the race really. It was just about giving it everything today and seeing what happened. The legs are pretty good but my arm is still sore. I’m happy with how it went.
“It’s easy to think about what could have been. You’ve just got to forget about that and what’s been is done. There’s a lot of racing still left. I’m not going to give up and I’m going to fight all the way. We’ll see where that puts me.”
“You expect support off the Brits and the Welsh fans back home which I love, but I seemed to get a lot of support off the Italian and Spanish fans today. That’s really encouraging as they don’t have to support me. It’s great to have cheers out there and it definitely spurs you on.
“I want to take it day by day now and hopefully I can recover over the next three stages. Tomorrow is a super hard day, then we’ve got two flat days. So hopefully I can recover. It’s a hell of a task now but we’ll see how it goes.”
Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo)
“I’m tired, my glutes are very sore,” answered Mollema when asked how he feels. “You not often have a TT of 40kms full gas because it was more or less always in the aero position; there was not much time to recover.
“I think 10th place was good for me. Okay, the difference to Dumoulin is pretty big, even bigger than I expected, but compared to the other GC riders I gained time on most of them, except Nibali who was a few seconds in front. I think it was a pretty good day.”
“The last part was really hard for me, I think at the start I was okay, but in the last 10kms I lost maybe 10-20 seconds too much,” explained Mollema. “It was headwind, and I couldn’t really keep the rhythm, so there I was really suffering. But in general, the start was good, and technically it was a good TT.”
Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana)
“My condition is growing, as I demonstrated it in the two breakaway of the last week and today this time trial had a race route that matched pretty well my characteristics and I did my best.”
“In the first flat part of the TT I pushed a lot, in the second hilly part I pushed more, I knew I could have done good and it went so: staying in the hot seat it was a good thing but then these three really strong guys overtaken me and I can only congratulate with them.”
“I’m pretty confident for the next stages because my legs are answering me in a very good way, the Giro is still long and I will try to catch any possible occasion” concluded Sanchez.
Matt White (Orica-Scott)
“We are really pleased with Adam’s ride today,” Orica-Scott sport director Matt White said. “We weren’t sure how he would pull up after Sunday’s crash so we are pleasantly surprised.”
“He has been working hard and we know his form is there.
“Obviously he lost some time to the specialists, we expected that, but he has also made time up or finished on-par with a lot of his main rivals.
“We haven’t move up any placings on the general classification but today has consolidated our position and we are confident that will come over the next two weeks.”
Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors)
“I’m really happy with my performance. Being on the podium of the time trial is fantastic for me. Being up there with Geraint Thomas is good while Tom Dumoulin is at another level. I think I showed my shape is still there and that Blockhaus was just a bad day.”
