And that concludes our live coverage for today – here is Jeremy Whittle’s stage report. Good night.
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“As a real professional you have to ride the Tour, you have to finish the Tour de France,” says a tearful Campanaerts. “Winning a stage is everyone’s dream … I’m not a neo pro, I’ve been dreaming of this for a very long time.
“After the Classics, I had a very difficult time. I had a verbal agreement with the team about extending my contract. I was ignored.
“My girlfriend supported me every day … I changed my mind … I have a bright future in cycling. I became a father and I saw only blue skies. I felt really good on the bike.
“This win is the sum of the atmosphere in the team. And we’re going to celebrate tonight.”
It’s a victory for your wife too? “She’s my girlfriend, not my wife, not yet … her support is incredible. I went for nine weeks on an altitude camp. She was highly pregnant. She is the hero in this story. I am so grateful that she made this possible, that I had a super long altitude camp to prepare for this Tour de France.
“I had the faith that I will be in good shape. I will be leaving the team, but I’m so happy that I can finish off with maybe the highlight of my career. Again, we will celebrate tonight.
“I think I played it very smart [today]. Also the team gave me a lot of confidence, everyone knew I had very good legs. This was a stage I aimed for in December already. Stage 18, I said, it’s the only stage I see for me to win. I slipped in the break with only one bullet. I played it a bit dirty with showing everyone I was hurting a lot so I didn’t have to do much too many pulls …
“We co-operated very well until the last kilometre. Three hard days to come, but I am looking so much to go home to my girlfriend and my son.”
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