He was fourth in the time trial of stage nine and regained the lead of the youth classification but Tejay van Garderen still has one thing on his mind: helping his team-mate win the yellow jersey.

“As soon as I put this on, I was thinking, ‘Oh man, I miss this shirt.' But the goal still remains the same: we've got to get Cadel in yellow. It looks like we've got a fight on our hands and a lot to ask to pull some time back. It was tough [to see Cadel lose time today] but, I mean, anything can happen. You've seen the fight with me and [Rein] Taaramae – I was three minutes down and, all of a sudden, I'm back in white. Cadel is a fighter and he'll fight for every inch and every second. I still believe that Cadel is going to be in yellow in Paris.
“I think we just need to remain calm and not get down. We have to keep doing what we've been doing. Cadel is still in fantastic shape and he's going to pull back time.
“It was predicted that Cadel was going to lose a bit [of time] and he lost more than he would have wanted to but, the thing is: I think nothing changes, you saw yesterday that Sky's team got a little weakened after controlling a hard day and Cadel was able to attack Bradley and he had to pull the gap back himself. If we can isolate Sky again and Cadel can go on the attack, I think he can crack Wiggins. I'll do the best I can to be there for Cadel.”