“I felt like I was floating out there today. It’s such a special occasion and Cannondale really put the pressure on us today – they put pressure on everyone – so they deserved that victory. Simon Gerrans, Simon Clarke and Michael Albasini did a great job to haul back [Jan] Bakelants in the end and allow me to keep the yellow jersey for another day.
“I would have loved to have done better in the sprint for ‘Gerro’ but, that being said, our main objective today was to keep the yellow jersey and we’ve done that.
“The final is always crazy but luckily the group was smaller than normally; had we come in with a really big group it would have been scary. We rode a conservative race and I think tomorrow is going to be a hard day to defend but for today we can tick it off: job done.
“As the kilometres ticked closer and closer to the end, I did find that I got a bit more nervous but I had a little bit of relief once we passed that three kilometres to go banner.
“I’d be overambitious to say that I thought I’d keep this jersey tomorrow but I’ll give it my best shot. But guys like Chris Froome and that... I can see them really putting the pressure on; it’s the first day in the mountains and I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to test each other. They’ve been waiting seven days to see how everyone is going so I think tomorrow it’ll be pretty hard to keep the yellow.”
