It was a dejected Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) who faced the media following Stage 5 of the Tour Down Under, having led the race for the previous three days.
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The final 600 metres of the three-kilometre climb brought an end to Thomas' hopes of being crowned overall winner. He was unable to go with the attacks of Movistar, Orica GreenEdge and Blanco and lost 28 seconds.
"Immediately afterwards you're pretty gutted, you want to win," he said. "When we look back tonight I'm sure we'll have a lot of positives to take from [the week. It's only the first race of the year and it started with a bang, ended with a bang - the wrong kind of bang - but it's been a good week. It's been hard racing."
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