Bob Jungels, from Luxembourg, rode solo across the finish line in Sunday's Tour de France.

The 29-year-old AG2R Citroën rider noted at his victory press conference that his overwhelming emotion was relief rather than any particular thought during the final meters of Sunday's grueling mountain trek through Switzerland and back into France over the climb of the first category Pas de Morjan.

As Jungels told Cycling News in a lengthy and moving interview last year, he was finally diagnosed in 2021, but only because the longstanding endoarterial fibrosis he had developed at least a season before that threatened to do irreparable damage to his career.

This year, however, the former Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner and Giro d'Italia leader was finally able to regain his previous top form and made an eye-opening return for AG2R Citroën, based in the city near Grenoble. After a long solo rest, he scored a remarkable victory.

"For sure, I thought I might not be able to come back to this level," Jungels told reporters. [Last year I had surgery and finally figured out why, so I started this season with a lot of motivation.

"But it took me a long time to recover and I'm thankful that I believed in myself the last couple of weeks. But it's been a real roller coaster of emotions."

Jungels, who finished 22 seconds ahead of Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadier), who had passed Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), the most relentless pursuer of Jungels, said it was a tense but thrilling finale.

"You don't think you're going to make it until you cross the line, which is always the case with braking. [To be honest, I didn't think much of it.

Jungels also had to deal with a "slight positive test" for COVID-19 a few days before the Tour de France, aside from Pinot, Sunday's climb, and a long battle with endoarterial fibrosis. Jungels was finally allowed to race the next day, but it was a step in the right direction.

"I think it was very, very close, and it was sudden, but luckily I made it," he recalled, adding that under current regulations, with a doctor's permission, it is "not my place" to answer whether it is right for an athlete infected with COVID to continue running in the peloton even if asymptomatic It is not," he stated.

"I had no symptoms and was perfectly healthy," Jungels said. We have experts and doctors to make these decisions."

Returning to the sport, he revealed that Jungels' choice to leave his rivals in the breakaway group far from the finish was not a strategic decision. Rather, he "lost" the last rider with him, Simon Geschke (Cofidis), on the descent of the Col de la Croix, a first class climb in the middle of the stage.

"Patrick Conrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the breakaway group also accelerated a bit in the first class 1 climb.

"Feeling very good, he continued his effort and pushed to the front.

"Geschke took the points. I told him I didn't need the points and that we would ride together for the next climb. But I lost him on the descent. Jungels said of his fellow Tour climber, who inherited the Tour's mountain prize from Magnus Kort (EF Education-Easy Post).

Jungels said he received a rather irritated response from the AG2R Citroen team car.

"I don't think they were happy with what I was trying to do and I didn't know it either.

Jungels, an eight-time Luxembourg national time trial champion, including this year, said that in such a long solo fight for success, especially on the long flat section from the start of the Aigle stage back to the climb of the Pas de Morjan, his ability to measure his strength as well as against the clock He said that the ability to gauge his own strength was crucial, as was the race against the clock.

"I just maintained my threshold effort. I knew that if they were going to catch me, I was going to have to go pretty fast back there," Jungels said later.

"On that 15km climb, I tried to push the pace as much as I could. But I knew from the race radio that Thibault was right behind me. In the end it worked out and I didn't get blown away.

Quite apart from the time trial, he said, the breakaway group was a similar scenario to the lone attack and its ferocious countermove when he fought for the win in Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2018, before his battle with endoarterial fibrosis began. Nevertheless, there were another 40 km to go between his attack and his eventual success with his hands in the air.

"The longer distance made things a little more complicated, but the strategy was pretty much the same," he said.

"I was afraid Thibault would catch me and I knew it would be hard to beat him in the uphill sprint. It's always hard to say what's on my mind, but I tried to stay focused, stay calm, and focus on my effort."

"And I was afraid Thibault would catch me.

"And luckily, that led to this victory," he concluded.