Cavendish: We have one objective

“This is really up there with one of the best wins I’ve had at the Tour. It was really hectic in the final: everyone was there, the GC guys, the climbers, the sprinters. And I had Bernie [Eisel] there keeping me out of trouble with five kilometers to go. It’s just so hard! If you’ve got a full team there, you can kind of stay out of trouble. Then, if you’ve got one or two [riders with you], it ends up being more hassle than it’s worth. So I said, ‘Oh, I’ll just do it alone.’ With about five to go, I just said, ‘Leave me – and we’ll see what happens.'
“It was quite nice. I came into a sprint day really with the least amount of pressure I’ve ever had for a Tour stage. Normally I’ve had a fully dedicated team and it’s been like, ‘If we do this and we do this, we’ll win...’ but I’m a realist and I know that without that, there’s only a small chance that I can win.
“I know that if I’m in the best position, I’m the fastest but to get there is half the work.
“As you can see, it was close. Normally I win by... ah, bike lengths, but today I had to lunge for the line. It wasn’t too easy.
“My family was here on the weekend but they went home this morning. I would have been nice for them to be here especially because my girlfriend Peta is incredible. I haven’t been easy to live with, knowing that I have to come here and not be able to win multiple stages but she’s been great to keep my morale up. She’s such great girl so I want to give a shout out to her.
“As for the race itself, I saw the spaces in the sprint, saw the opportunity like I always do... If we win, we win but we’re here as a team with one objective and that’s to create history and win the yellow jersey with a British rider and a British team.”