Fabian Cancellara - "I risked a little too much..."

“Everybody was trying to stay in the front group and sometimes accidents can happen when you take a few chances like I did in the last five kilometers. I risked a little too much but I wanted to defend my jersey and I want to say thank you to my team-mate for what they did today. I hope now that I will keep the jersey for one more day; that would be good. _ “I wasn’t really trying to win the stage, I was only defending. I said to my team-mates that I’d do my best and I descended to the finish alone but before that they rode really fast to help me keep the lead. _ “When we saw other teams working we decided to try and do something. Today we played the lottery and I think we won but we respected everybody and worked at the end but not right from the start because we’ve been working really hard for a few days and it was time for other teams to take some responsibility. So it’s fine by me that someone else got the win today. _ “I don’t know what happened when I lost control. I was just trying really hard and it’s not that I wanted to win the stage but now it’s time to look after Carlos (Sastre) and Frank Schleck and I’ll do what I can to help.”