Thymen Arensman will need time to convince himself that today was his second victory at the Tour de France. After winning at Superbagneres, today the Ineos Grenadiers Dutch rider conquered the La Plagne finish line, closing ahead of the two strongest riders in the world: Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.

"It's already extraordinary to win a stage at the Tour de France, but winning a second one in front of two champions like Pogacar and Vingegaard is truly incredible. It seems impossible and I struggle to believe it really happened."

Arensman was visibly emotional and, once crossing the finish line, sat on the ground, letting out a liberating cry. The Dutch rider is over 50 minutes behind in the general classification and therefore knew he could win a stage by exploiting his freedom.

"I had told my teammate Tobias Foss that I was feeling good and that I would try to do something. I told him: I'll see what I can do today. Then I started the climb and was quite positive because I felt I could control the situation. And I thought: I'm not a general classification rider, maybe they'll look at each other."

At that moment, Arensman's dream was taking shape: after staying with Pogacar and Vingegaard, he realized his legs were working well and he could fight to win the stage. "Then I started to believe I could do something important and I told myself: you know what I'll do? I'll try and won't accept no as an answer. And knowing I was with two aliens, as a human being I told myself: yes, I want to try to beat them. And now I can't believe I beat them."

At the beginning of this Tour de France, things weren't going well for Ineos-Grenadiers, then Arensman started to unlock himself and understand how the Tour de France works, because this is his first time in the yellow race. After the second place in the tenth stage, behind Simon Yates on Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy, the Dutch rider truly started to believe in himself and thus the first victory came with the fourteenth stage.

"While climbing, I knew Pogacar and Vingegaard were behind me and I tried not to look back and go as fast as possible and I succeeded, but it wasn't simple and, if I'm honest, it was simply crazy."

Arensman raced the Giro d'Italia this year and didn't think his Tour de France would be so incredible. "The first two weeks at the Giro were really positive for me, but then I got sick and then I fell in the third week and my knee was hurting a lot. I still made it to Rome, I reached the finish line, but I had higher general classification hopes, so finishing the Tour with two stage wins is simply crazy and it's like this was my revenge for not finishing the Giro as I would have wanted."