Having won the Tour of California earlier this season and being tipped to join Cadel Evans as co-leader at the BMC Racing Team, American Tejay van Garderen entered the with high ambitions.

After the first weekend in the mountains, however, van Garderen’s chances of defending his white jersey from 2012 and a top placing in the GC look less than slim.

Van Garderen’s high hopes crumbled on the first mountain stage to Aix-3-Domaines on Saturday when he was blasted by the Sky dominance as Chris Froome steamrollered the peloton. Sunday’s stage 9 to Bagnères-De-Luchon saw the American trail home even further adrift as Movistar ignited the race, although a short-lived effort to escape into a break gave the rider and his team hope that he could still salvage something from the race. The stage ended in another huge disappointment, though, but van Garderen vowed to keep going in order to try and gain some positive results during the remaining two weeks of the race.

"It was rough. I tried going into a breakaway but it didn't work so I just tried to survive to the finish," van Garderen told Cyclingnews.com after he nearly wheeled to a standstill during Sunday’s trials. "Right now I'm just looking forward to the rest day. Obviously right now this Tour isn't going our way but we're going to keep trying to ride aggressively and then salvage what we can from the Tour."

Crashes und minor injuries sustained during the first week may have been causative reasons but van Garderen remains at a loss as to how and why his form has abandoned him at the Tour.

"I'm not sure [what's wrong]. I've been talking to my coach and trying to pinpoint it. I might have an answer for you after the race," van Garderen said. "I came into the race feeling fit and strong and read to go. These last couple of days obviously it's not been the race but hopefully I can bounce back and make something happen."