Despite still being high up on GC at the midway point in the Dauphine, Adam Yates of Orica-GreenEDGE says he still isn’t under any pressure to go for the overall win.

“I've not done much intensity and I've just been trying to focus on my main aim for the season, which is the Tour de France, and I'm happy with the prologue. Hopefully it's a good sign for the rest of the week," he told Cyclingnews when asked about his pre-Dauphibe training. "We'll see about GC though. As I said I've not done much intensity so once we get into the mountains and these guys start putting the hammer down we'll see."

Yates says having a good Dauphine is no wear near as important as it is to have form and energy left over for the Tour and Olympics.

"I've got a similar build up to last year. Last year I won San Sebastian and that was a week after the Tour. Last year the Dauphine I started going okay but wasn't super. We're just building up steadily with the same programme, so hopefully I can go well into the last week of the Tour and then carry that into the Olympics."

Yates revealed he has done a reconnaissance of three of the Tour’s hardest stages and gave his opinion on how well he can do over those three days.

"I did a few days before the Dauphine. I did stage 19, 20 and the mountain time trial. The mountain TT is a good one for me. I'm not great at time trialing but I can go uphill pretty quickly. Hopefully if I can get there I can pull something out of the bag."