Yates to target stage victories

ADAM Yates hopes to emulate twin brother Simon and collect a Tour de France stage win this week after seeing his general classification hopes end on the Tourmalet.

The Australian team Mitchelton-Scott’s rider had set himself the target of a podium finish on the Tour but that all fell apart on Saturday when he lost nearly seven minutes to his rivals, to tumble down out of the top 10, more than 10 minutes in arrears.

He lost another 20 minutes on Sunday as his brother raced to his second stage win of the week on the Prat d’Albis above Foix, but said that was deliberate as he now looks to give himself some leeway to go in breakaways.

“I’m not interested in chasing top 15 on GC,” Adam Yates said. “I was here to do podium or better. Once that’s gone out of the window you switch mentality and target stages.”

His struggle in the Pyrenees was doubly disappointing as it was almost a repeat of what happened last year, when his GC hopes ended in the Alps at the end of the second week. Yates blamed dehydration then, but said it was too soon to know what had gone wrong this time around.

“At the moment it’s pretty hard to pinpoint one thing and, really, I don’t want to make any excuses,” he said.

“At the end of the day I wasn’t good enough and that’s how it is. I’ve been good all season but just not here at the moment.

“I’ve been going full gas all season and maybe it’s caught up with me. I still feel good. I had a real bad day on the Tourmalet but yesterday I felt all right. It was just a bad day at the worst time but that’s the way it goes.”