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You speak to the press at the Tour every day, but most often in a negative sense. Ninety per cent of the questions you are asked in the post-race press conferences are challenging or provocative, so you have to justify yourself; you have to try to give the right answers about every topic across the board.

I am struck by how, walking down the street, I'm rarely made aware of my race, but that among journalists, race is absolutely massive.

The only thing I want to think about the moments before a race is competing. I don't want the little things to distract me.

I don't run anybody else's race. When the gun goes off, I must evaluate with my own body and see. Then, as the race develops, I run accordingly. So you can say that I do not have a set tactic for any race.

Whenever I race in the U.K., the crowd just makes such a massive difference, often between winning and losing.

The press is the enemy.

I love the press; I even like the people that don't like me. If it wasn't for those people, no one would know who I was and I wouldn't have a gig.

Honestly, everybody gets talked about. Some people control their press a little more than others. Some people feed the press and move it the way they want to. I don't do that.

The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.

Before competition, I start to question things. I don't know why it happens, but you've got to control it so you don't get too far out of the race.