At the arrival of the seventh stage in Albi, Shayne Bannan, the manager of Orica-GreenEdge, wore a broad smile. "What a wonderful week we have experienced!”" he exclaimed as events turned things in favour of his men and extended beyond the team’s ambitions. A stage victory of Simon Gerrans was followed by a victory in the team time trial and four days in the yellow jersey, two each for Gerrans and Daryl Impey…
“The yellow race numbers [and helmets] denoting our status as leaders of the team standings is also a sign of prestige they express a strong symbol of the group's success.” Once all teams – except Vacansoleil-DCM and Lotto-Belisol – had at least three men in the first strong field of 99 riders, Orica-GreenEdge held the lead eight seconds on Sky Procycling and 10 seconds to Team Saxo-Tinkoff after the team rankings for the stage to Albi was won by Omega Pharma-Quick Step because of the combined attack of Michal Kwiatkowski (4th), Sylvain Chavanel (10th) and Peter Velits (32nd).
