Thymen Arensman had already won a stage in a grand tour back in 2022 at the Vuelta, but now he has also a victory at the Tour de France in his palmares. The Dutch Ineos Total Energies rider had finished the Giro d'Italia under par and in his first Tour participation he wanted to do something good. Arensman had already distinguished himself in the tenth stage by finishing second, and today he succeeded in the toughest Pyrenean stage of this Tour.

"I can't believe I managed to win. I already did the Giro this year and then I got sick. But I think that despite the illness, I managed to prepare well and in my first Tour I just wanted to try to give my all".

The Dutchman was patient and perfectly studied the dynamics of this race. He waited without making any mistakes and in the end he managed to achieve the stage victory he had been dreaming of. "I had to be very patient in the first week, because everything was quite challenging and I had to understand how the race worked. Then I had to wait until the mountains and at the first opportunity I immediately finished second in the stage at Mont Dore Puy de Sancy. That was already an incredible experience. I'm at my first Tour de France and I've done a second place and won a stage. It's really crazy".

Ineos Grenadiers had not started the Tour in the best way, in fact on the first day of the race they had lost Filippo Ganna. Then as the days went by, things improved and today the entire team helped Arensman conquer his first victory in the Grande Boucle.

"The whole team did an excellent job for me, but I think I had fantastic legs and the best form of my life and when I felt the gap with the general classification group and the group, I thought today could be the right day, even though I was thinking about Jonas and those three and a half minutes, telling myself that probably they weren't enough".

The Dutchman is naturally out of the best group and his overall classification delay is over 42 minutes, but he thought Vingegaard would attack today to try to put Tadej Pogacar in difficulty.

"I thought I had to move, I told myself that maybe it was suicide or maybe not. But I can't believe I kept everyone at bay, because I was really losing ground on that last climb: the second half of the climb was terrible".

The Dutchman found the right strength to continue pushing on the pedals and the roadside public really encouraged him. "I think all the spectators who were there gave me a few extra watts, it's also thanks to them that I managed to keep everyone behind and it's incredible, it's crazy".

And so: "This is my first Tour and to be honest I just wanted to experience this race, the most important in the world. I've done many Giros and also the Vuelta with excellent general classification results and I also have a stage win at the Vuelta but I just wanted to experience the biggest race in the world and then winning a stage at my first Tour like this is incredible, it's crazy".