Going into the Tour de France, Tejay van Garderen was targeting the podium. With just 5 stages to go, he sits in third overall and is optimistic that he will be able to defend that position.

“There’s always a chance that Froome could stumble a little bit," he said at his rest day press conference. "Right now we haven’t seen any signs of him cracking. I need to look out for Quintana but I also need to look out for the two Spanish guys behind me: Valverde and Contador. They’re pretty close. For sure they’re going to want to take advantage if I fall into a difficult place but I’m feeling strong and the podium in Paris is a very realistic goal.

“The third week if the Tour is always very unpredictable, you never know how people are going to respond. Nothing is a given but I’m ahead and they’re behind, so they’re going to have make the attacks and not me.

“They say there’s never an easy day on the Tour de France and that’s certainly true after the tough first week and the even tougher second week. But I feel like I’m recovering well every day, the team is strong every day and we always have strength in numbers in the final. I expect that to continue all the way to Paris.

“If you look at last few years, I was kind of off the back, in my own rhythm, trying to chase these guys. Now I’m right there with them.

“If there’s five guys going over the top of the climb, I’m in those five guys. I’m still young; I turn 27 next month, so I still think I have a couple of years where I can improve more. I definitely think I have certainly improved over the years.”

“They’re all hard," he said when asked about the four Alpine stages." We saw in the Dauphiné that the Pra-Loop stage was very selective. But for me the stage to La Toussuire is the hardest. We have four big passes and nearly 5000m of climbing. That’s a big one.

“The perfect scenario is that I’m wearing yellow in Paris. But I’m 3 minutes down so I don’t know if that’s a realistic goal. From now to Paris, if we can get another stage victory and remain on podium, that’d be good.”