Chris Froome has said that he could not be happier after taking victory on stage seven of the 67th Critérium du Dauphiné.
Froome got away from Tejay Van Garderen to win on Mont Blanc and told Team Sky's press office: “I couldn’t be happier. The guys rode out of their skin and buried themselves to make it as hard as possible. On the back of yesterday’s stage – which had a lot of the main contenders in the break – it made sense to do that. That’s one of the beauties of stage racing, you can’t give everything one day and then expect to back it up the next.
“As I said, I can’t thank my team-mates enough, and it was special to have my wife at the finish. That gave me an added incentive to go hard and see her.
Tejay has ridden a really good race and BMC did a really good time trial on Tuesday which put almost 30 seconds into us. I still have a bit to make up on him. It’s not an easy stage tomorrow and the race isn’t over until it’s over. We’ll keep fighting all the way ‘til the end.
“Today was a really good show of where I’m at [heading into the Tour de France]. I’ve still got some work to do, and I’m not at my best yet, but being able to ride a stage like that shows I’m not far off and I’m really happy.”