With just over a week to go before the start of the race, Mitchelton-Scott's Tour de France leader, Adam Yates, is raring to go.
The British climber has been cast as the undisputed leader of the Australian team's eight-man squad – to the detriment of Caleb Ewan, who had been expected to be named on the team for the sprint stages.
"I was pretty disappointed for Caleb," Yates told the press on Thursday. "I was out there with him in California when we did a training camp in Lake Tahoe before the Tour of California, and all the team was working well together, and getting ready for the Tour. But management changed their mind, and that's how it is. There's more pressure on me now, but it doesn't really change anything too much for me."
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Yates went into May's Tour of California unsure of how well he would go, having had to battle back from a broken pelvis sustained at the Volta a Catalunya six weeks previously. He ended up taking fourth overall there, after finishing third on stage 2 behind Egan Bernal (Team Sky) and Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe), and second to Bernal on the queen stage to Lake Tahoe.
Yates then rode the Critérium du Dauphiné, where he rode strongly and consistently in the mountains, and then won the final stage to secure second place overall, just a minute behind winner Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), and 47 seconds ahead of big French hope Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale).
"I obviously came out of the Dauphiné really well, having felt as though I was getting better with every stage," said Yates. "Training's been going well since then, and I'm feeling good. Everything's slotting into place. But training's a lot different to racing, so you don't really know how you're going until you start racing again.
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