Froome: I decided to sneak away for the stage win

“We wanted to make the most out of our opportunities. If that’s demonstrated our strength, then fantastic but for us we executed a plan that we put in place for a long time and I’m just really happy that it came off.
“It was a bit of an acceleration at the end by Evans but I was actually expecting him to go a little bit harder to be honest. I don’t know if he had seen the finish because it really is steep there and I could see him slowing down a little bit and I thought, ‘I can see Bradley is in perfect position, he’s not going to lose any time let me just put in a small acceleration here and see if we can also take the stage.’ And I got it so I’m really happy.
“The goal is still with Bradley Wiggins for the overall but if I’m there or thereabouts then that’s also a threat for our opposition so it’s putting us in a really good position.
“You could see that I put in a little acceleration going over the top of the climb I could feel that Cadel wasn’t quite with me and that’s when I decided to sneak away for the stage win.
“Going up that last climb, Richie [Porte] set a fantastic pace. He dropped so many riders going up there and he made it so easy for us as we were sitting right there on the wheel in perfect position. It left me with the last two kilometers just to ride steady and set things up for the finish. We’ve been here to look at the course so I knew that the last little kick was going to be quite hard. Maybe it surprised a few people.”