Jonas Vingegaard today would have wanted to win for his son Hugo, to celebrate a bit from a distance, the birthday of the youngest at home, born exactly one year ago. Unfortunately, pro-Palestinian protesters reached the finish line of the eleventh stage, trying to enter the race course. To avoid incidents, the organizers decided to neutralize the race: therefore no winner and time stopped when 3 kilometers were left to the end.

"We wanted to win today. It's my son's birthday. Today he celebrates his first year. I wanted to win for him and we worked all day to succeed" - said Vingegaard after reaching the team bus - "It's a real shame not to have had the opportunity to win for him. Personally, I would have liked very much to conquer the stage. I can only say that I had the chance to win the stage for him, but it didn't happen, and that's how things went".

Jonas Vingegaard remains in the red jersey and no one will ever know who would have won at the Bilbao finish line at the end of the two-man breakaway, since the Dane was alone with Tom Pidcock.

The riders felt safe during the race, certain that both the organizers and the police forces did an excellent job.

"To be honest, I think the police did a good job today. We had already seen the protesters trying to get on the road, so yes, I think the police kept them away and then, apart from that, nothing serious happened. There was another moment when they tried to block us, I believe on the penultimate climb, but we just went on, so yes, apart from that, we had no other problems".

While Vingegaard was on the run with Tom Pidcock and few kilometers were left to the finish line, the neutralization communication arrived, which surprised the entire group of riders. "Of course I was a bit disappointed and didn't want to do anything, but then Tom went very fast uphill, I had to let him go. I can say that we had a good collaboration, we wanted to take as much advantage as possible. I'm not sure Tom really knew that he would never be the stage winner because he wanted to continue even after the 3 km sign. When I found out about the neutralization, I thought only of reaching the 3 km as quickly as possible, this way I knew I wouldn't win but that I would still gain time".

The Visma-Lease a Bike plan was to win, but this did not happen and at the end of the race, Vingegaard thanked all his teammates for the work done.

"I can say that the team did a super job today. I think the fact that I remained alone with Pidcock says it all. We controlled the race all day and it's a shame we didn't win".

The Danish champion did not want to comment on the political issue between Israel and Palestine and regarding the protesters, he only spoke about race safety.

"Today I was among the first two and I should have done a sprint with Tom. But probably the organizers' decision to neutralize the race was right. We all hope to continue the race regularly in the next stages. This is the wrong place where they are protesting. What do they want us to do? But we know that it's also a way to get on television and in the end they do. But it's a shame that for us the race has to end before the finish line...".