I went as deep as I could, says Impey MyZA

Daryl Impey shares his stresses of defending the yellow jersey, digging deep for as long as he could and simply enjoying the Tour de France experience.

Daryl’s yellow jersey blog: “I went as deep as I could”. Photo: James Startt

First of all, I would really like to take this opportunity to thank all of South Africa for the amount of messages and support that were sent my way the last couple of days.

It was great to read and see that cycling is far more popular in SA than I thought.

I was on an absolute high from the day I got a chance to take yellow. To be honest, it was just chaos!

The first day in yellow was so special – having my wife Ali and son Ayden at the start made it even 10 times better.

I stepped out the bus and got some questions about our tactics and whether we would try keep yellow, my answer was simply “YES”. You don’t take the yellow and never defend.

I asked Froome whether he was planning on taking it, his answer was simple “Yes”, so at that point I knew I hardly stood a chance given the mountains coming up.

Anyway I went out and gave it my best, the team committed and we raced in honour of the jersey. I went as deep as I could and kept going right till the end. After I was dropped I did really start to enjoy the jersey.

There is a need to keep pushing myself as next week I see some good opportunities for the team and I. – Daryl