Fellow Sky team mate and british cyclist Chris Froome (Kenyan born) finishes in second, heavy speculation whether he was stronger than Wiggens will carry on into next year. In any case it is a strong domination of British cyclists in the lead up to the London Olympics which has been in the back of the minds of many of the cyclists competing.

Cadel Evans wasn’t able to match the strength of Wiggins and also Froome as he lost time in the mountains and with a stomach bug wasn’t able to recover.

Peter Sagen (Slovakia) of Liquigas took three stage victories, one ahead of Cavendish. Australian Matt Goss of the Australian team Orica GreenEDGE was strong in his fight for the green points jersey and finished third after Andre Greipel. French Rider Thomas Voeckler of Europcar took the King of the Mountains Polka Dot Jersey, US rider Tejay Van Garderen of BMC took the youth classification and the team classification went to RadioShack-Nissan despite Fabian Cancellara dropping out and team leader Frank Schleck also dropping out (later disqualified for doping).

In the first year at the Tour de France, Aussie team Orica GreenEDGE were visible and though victory eluded Matt Goss we look forward to the team growing from this experience and becoming stronger.

Swift, recovering from a three-hour training ride on Friday morning has told us that riding in near 50deg heat “It was so hot it was hard to breathe,” said Swift. “You felt it burning your throat, and we were all going about with croaky voices. But the last couple of days haven’t been so hot and I’m feeling really good now and looking forward to the race.”

Swift and his six Team Sky team-mates will make their competitive debut on Sunday, 48 hours before the Tour Down Under gets underway, with a circuit race in Adelaide city centre acting as curtain-raiser to the first ProTour event of the 2010 season.

“We’ve got a strategy, but I think in the race itself we’ll play it by ear,” continued Swift. “We’ve all got a role, but in training you’ve got no one challenging you, so it’s different to a race and it’s a case of whether we can pull it off in the race. You never know what’s going to happen on the road, and as the race goes on we’ll tweak things a little bit.

As Swift noted, most of the world’s top sprinters are in Adelaide . “Only Cav [Mark Cavendish], [Thor] Hushovd and [Tom] Boonen are missing,” he said. “It’ll be tough, but we’ve got a few days to have a go at cracking it. If we keep trying and trying and finally crack it on the last day that’ll be a result for us.

“We’d love to have a stage win and we’ll do our best for that, but if we can work well as a team it’ll bode well for the year, I think.

“Greg Henderson, CJ [Chris Sutton] and Mathew Hayman are all going well and are really motivated for this race, but the rest of us [Russell Downing, Chris Froome and Davide Vigan] are going well too.

Ljungqvist retired from professional cycling earlier this month after the 2009 Paris-Tours race.
The 34 year old from Sweden has enjoyed a successful 12-year riding career, most recently with Team CSC/Team Saxo Bank since 2006.

David Brailsford, Team Principal for Team Sky commented “We are really pleased to have Marcus on board with us and he will work well with Scott and Steven. The guys know the cycling world inside out and will be able to bring invaluable knowledge with them to the team. We have been busy this summer putting together the right group of people and building a broad team; we are in great shape..”