After a few bad days at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Bon Jungels had started to doubt his own abilities. Today he was one of the strongest in a great 16-rider breakaway and got his confidence back ahead of the Ardennes.

Bob Jungels needed this day. In the second stage he was also part of the day’s principal breakaway, but his legs were not the same legs of Paris-Nice, and he could not hold on to the break’s pace.  From there, each successive day was a little worse for the young talent from Luxembourg. He began to doubt.

“In the beginning of the week I was in the breakaway, I did well, but I could tell there was a little bit missing. In the next days after that I was in trouble. And today I got the confidence back, I gave it my all, it was one climb too much at the end, but I am happy,” explained a relieved Jungels after the race had finished. “It was important to see that I am still okay. Today I felt really good, I am back, and that is good news for the Ardennes Classics.

“All the years that I have been racing up to now I have never had a period where I was not good, I don’t want to say that this was a period, as it was just a few days, but you ask yourself questions. You want to prove to yourself that it’s wrong, so in this way it was a very good day for me.”

Jungels was aggressive from the start, attacking near the top of the first category three climb, and creating the day’s 15-rider break that would endure until the final category one climb with only 13 kilometers remaining.  

“On the first categorized climb Andy [Schleck] attacked and I think it was a little too early when he went, so I waited until the last 500m and countered,” Jungels said. “I did the downhill à bloc and then I was alone. On the flat I kept going and hoped someone would come up to me. Then Romain Sicard came after a few kilometers, and 5k later a big group joined us. We started slowly as I think behind they were still pulling. It was a really hard day.

"When Sicard crashed, [Philippe] Gilbert jumped, and I think the break finally could go; they stopped pulling from behind. In the end I attacked in the last 2k of the first category climb and got away with [Bauke] Mollema and [Tim] Wellens. I made my own downhill and had 10 seconds by the bottom, but I kept a reserve in case they came back, and they did. In the final climb we gave it everything we had, but it was not that much anymore.”

With Jungels, Mollema (Belkin), and Wellens (Lotto-Belisol) caught, the attacks began in earnest on the final ascent, but with an eight- kilometer downhill to the finish, it was 22 strong that stormed into the final kilometer. Ben Swift (Team Sky) won the stage, while Robert Kiserlovski, back to his usual climbing form, placed 20th and moves into 16th overall.

The final stage tomorrow is a  26-kilometer time trial. Kiserlovski will attempt to climb a few spots in the overall, while Bob Jungels, the race against the clock a discipline he does well in, will hope to recover enough to end the race stronger than he started.

“Tomorrow I don’t know, I had a tough day today  – if I recover well I can do a pretty good TT, but I can only say that tomorrow morning,” Jungels added.

“Everybody has been suffering until now and the last two days I took it a little bit easy, so maybe I can do well, but for me the important thing was to see that I am good. If I don’t do well tomorrow, I know the reason,” Jungels smiled.