Wiggins out of contention

The Team Sky rider, who finished fourth last year, ended the 204.5-km trek from Morzine in 30th place, 4:55 behind stage winner Sandy Casar, and he dropped to 18th overall, 7:18 off the pace.

"That's just the way it goes. That's life, unfortunately.

You try your hardest, you do everything possible to be in good shape and it's obviously not with the best of them," Wiggins said.

"It's only sport at the end of the day. We'll just keep pushing on, see what happens, do our best and that's all we can do now."

Wiggins, who kept up with the leaders in the mountains last year, lost 1:45 in Sunday's first stage in the Alps and a 25.5-km climb at an average gradient of 6.2 per cent on Tuesday was too much for him to handle.

"I'll just do my best every day," he said. "I don't think the General Classification's finished totally in terms of getting a respectable position and that may be top 10 for me," he said.

"I'll try and do my best to finish top 10 and just keep pushing on for that and get the best out of myself each day."

Things are unlikely to get better for Wiggins, however, as four punishing days in the Pyrenees lie ahead.

"I don't want to give up, there's been so much support out there on the road it's been fantastic," he said.

"I don't want to give up and throw my toys out of the pram, finish at the back or go home, so I'm going to just push on every day and maybe just recalibrate, say top 10 is now the goal.

"We put everything into it, it hasn't worked. It's not because we haven't tried."