Having swapped Team Sky for Astana this offseason, Dario Cataldo has revealed he didn’t want to leave Sky at all.

“At my last race in China last year [the Tour of Beijing], I felt that my team-mates were sad that I was leaving,” Cataldo told Cycling Weekly.

“I would have liked to stay,” he added. “They wanted to keep me, but it’s always an issue what is offered and what you want.”

But he says his time spent at Team Sky was valuable to him and he has gained plenty of experience riding for the team, which he thinks has made him a better rider in the process.

“I learned some training techniques and a lot about nutrition. In every team, you pick up something. I also learned while with QuickStep, but with Sky, as everyone knows, it’s rigid and programmed. It’s not too rigid, but it’s a very extreme system. Extreme in the sense that you focus a lot on one thing and maybe leave other things aside. You always have to compromise.”

“I’m proud that I always did my work, I think I did it well. You have to leave my results aside because with my role, the results are relative, but I think I did good work with Wiggins, Froome, [Sergio] Henao or whoever was the captain at that moment. I did what I had to do. The fact that I’m at Fabio Aru’s and Vincenzo Nibali‘s side now is because they know about the work that I did in Sky.”