“He was pushing the limits too far and he took himself down in front of me which also put me as risk. I had to go off the road for a second to try and get around him. I didn't really come off, I just had to reclip into my bike and get going again. I don't think it was necessary to take those kinds of risks.
“Alberto Contador crashed in front of me. He was pushing, I think, a little bit too fast on the descent. Trying to get away from us and he crashed in front of me. That put me in danger. I went around, off the road, and then I had to correct myself and get back in. I was lucky enough to have my team-mate Richie Porte there to keep me in the front of the race and to keep an eye on things.
“It did give me a lot of confidence having my team-mate there and I knew the race wasn't going to ride away from me there and then... we were in quite a small group already.
“We've got a really big day tomorrow with the time trial and following that we've got another three really hard days so there's going to be some exciting racing coming up.”
