Irishman Dan Martin was disappointed with his second place finish on the third stage of the 69th Vuelta a España.
Martin said to the La Vuelta.com website: “On Friday we came and saw the finish of today’s stage. So I knew it was a good one for me.
"I’m disappointed to come second but Matthews was just quicker than me.
"When Chris Froome went in front of us, I was committed. It went perfect all day. My team was fantastic. Andrew [Talansky] helped me at the bottom of the climb. I didn’t run out of legs but it would have been nicer to win a stage.”
Simon Clarke of Orica-GreenEdge said: “Something like this [the uphill finale] is perfect for Matthews but we definitely didn’t plan to ride so much today. The guys were awesome! With such winding roads, it was not much harder to ride at the front though. We got through. We weren’t expecting Movistar to give the jersey away but very early in the stage it’s been obvious that they wouldn’t help us. They wanted to take away the responsibilities. Then we were not going to ride half for the stage and half for GC, we just committed to everything. The boys were unbelievable: Mitch (Docker), Sam (Bewley) and Brett (Lancaster) rode early on, later on it was Cam (Meyer) and Adam (Yates), Santino (Ivan Santaromita) did the work to come in to the finish. There was no way we had enough to give Michael a lead out after that. It was up to me to get him onto John Degenkolb’s wheel with 1.5km to go. That’s where I left him.”
Green jersey wearer Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr) said: “My team-mates have given everything to get me a good position and I gave my best but the last climb was too hard for me. The strong attack by the Katusha rider wasn’t the idea scenario for me. He made the group explode. I didn’t have enough strength left for sprinting after that, so I focused on scoring some points for the green jersey. I think tomorrow’s stage will suit me better with a flat finish.”
King of the Mountains Lluis Mas (Caja Rural): This is the most beautiful day of my career so far. I’ve dreamt about that for a long time. I thought my condition could allow me to break away and claim the polka dot jersey. The last climb was too far away from the finish so I stood up. My goal was reached. I dedicate this stage to my girlfriend. She’ll have a baby next month.”
Breakaway rider Jacques Janse van Rensburg (MTN-Qhubeka): “This is my first Grand Tour and it’s MTN-Qhubeka’s first Grand Tour, so it was nice to try and go away today but I tried yesterday as well. In the next two days, I’ll take it easy in order to help my team-mates on stage 6.”