Thomas Lovkvist – “I won't give the white jersey away...”

“I had a 55x11 and with a bit of time to reflect, I think I should have had an even bigger gear because I was spinning out on the downhill. Maybe a 56 or 57 would have been good. I’m not sure how fast I was going but I was pedaling at over 110 revs with my 55x11 so I guess it was pretty quick. _ “I had hopes of taking the white jersey and it was in the back of my mind in the first few days. I’m happy to have it now but I know there are strong guys close to me. Kreuziger did a really good time trial in the Tour de Suisse and I wasn’t so sure about him. Also Andy Schleck can always surprise. I had two minutes to Feillu and normally you can do amazing things when you have the yellow jersey so I wasn’t sure how it would go today. _ “I won’t give the white jersey away but I think Andy could be the one to challenge; he’s a great climber and we’ll see how well I go in the mountains. That’s where it’s going to be decided. _ “Brian Holm was calling from the team car for me. I don’t like when there’s too much talk on the radio or any meaningless shouting on the radio and I told him I’d stop pedaling if they do that. So it was just concrete information like, ‘You’ve got this time and you’re this much behind so and so…’ it was just encouraging, slow talk. That’s the way I want it and I have to thank Brian because he did a good job.”