Maxime Monfort (Lotto Soudal) reached his goal of joining a successful breakaway in the Vuelta a Espana but had to settle for 10th in stage 13.

“It was war in the beginning of the stage, 150 riders wanted to be in the break," he said. "Also we wanted to have a guy in front. It took almost two hours before the big break was formed. This was the toughest start of a stage in this Vuelta so far.

"Once I was part of the front group, the hardest part was over. There was some time to recover afterwards. At first, I feared the group would be too big, but on the first category climb I noticed everyone did his part of the job and every rider had an interest in staying in front.

"It wasn’t easy as only rider of my team, so I didn’t want to miss it if a small group would take off. Oliveira was too strong, we realized quite soon we were riding for the second place. It was a strong effort of him, because we were all chasing hard.

"It’s the first time I’m not riding for a GC in a Grand Tour and that I have a free role, it feels weird. I definitely want to attack again in one of the next stages.”