Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) has reiterated his decision to focus on stage wins rather than GC challenges in this year's Tour de France.

Yates is part of Mitchelton-Scott's aggressive lineup, and the team has decided to focus on stage wins rather than winning the yellow jersey. Yates finished fourth and took the white jersey a few years ago, but has not lived up to his own high expectations since then. This time, he will be free of the pressure and will be looking for his first stage win in a Grand Tour.

"I feel good and fresh going into the race.

"I wasn't at 100% in the Criterium Dauphine, but I got better every day going into the race. I went into the break and got to the front. Then I took a few days off and went straight into the Recon camp. I am getting better every day and becoming more myself every day. It's not ideal, but it's getting better.

Yates has competed in the Tour de France for the past two years, but despite being touted as a GC contender, he fell apart in the mountains; in 2018, he almost took the stage win, but crashed on the final descent of stage 16, narrowly missing out.

"The last few years I didn't prepare ideally, I went into the race looking for GC, but it didn't work out as planned. It would be foolish to repeat the same thing again. I was not in good shape, I was quite ill, and it is a big ask to aim for the GC, and if you are not 100% you will be left behind. This year there are a lot of breakaway stages and I think I have a lot of chances."

The battle for stage wins this time around could start with the second stage, which, unlike the opening stage of the Tour de France, has a lumpy finale. With two mountain sections in the final few kilometers, some predict that the GC contenders heading to Nice could even be in contention for the win.

"Probably the hardest start I've seen in a long time. I checked out the second stage today and it's one of the hardest stages to start a Grand Tour. We'll just have to wait and see how the legs are," Yates said.

Regardless of the outcome, this will be Yates' final Tour race at Mitchelton-Scott. He is eager to leave the team he turned pro with in 2014 highly motivated.

"There may still be the Vuelta at the end of the year, but I know the team doesn't care what happens and I will always give my best, I always have since I turned pro in 2014. The whole Tour is going to be an aggressive, aggressive race.

"I started my career here six or seven years ago. It wasn't an easy decision, but I'm happy with the choice I made, I made up my mind a couple of weeks ago and it just went from there."