Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) remains in the Tour de France general classification battle despite losing 17 seconds to the two top favourites, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) on the difficult ascent to Mende airfield on Saturday.
Pogačar put in a searing attack after barely a kilometre of the Mende ascent and Vingegaard quickly shadowed the double Tour de France winner, distancing Thomas.
Given this was a repeat of how events had played out at Planche des Belles Filles and Chatel, there was a sense of deja vu as the Slovenian and Dane danced away for their private duel for Tour de France supremacy.
But just as on those earlier stages, their gains on Thomas were minimal in the second week in Mende.
By riding at his own pace and limiting the damage as a result, the Welshman remains in third place overall, 2:43 down on Vingegaard. He has also taken a useful nine seconds on Romain Bardet (DSM), Thomas’ closest challenger for the podium, but did not have a great day at Mende.
As Thomas explained afterwards to reporters, “while you’re keeping an eye on the guys behind, you’re always trying to look forward.” And for now, while a little more distant, both Pogačar and Vingegaard remain within sight on GC.
“It’s not necessarily my type of climb: steep and punchy, and 10 minutes or less and bang! It was over. But it was solid,” Thomas said.
“As I said at the start of the day, a climb like that you can have the same sort of gaps as on Alpe d’Huez sometimes.”
If Thomas’ ascent to Mende was about limiting the gaps, given his cobbled Classics racing past it perhaps wasn’t surprising he seemed perfectly at home in the first fraught hour of riding when Pogačar tried to launch an early attack and Vingegaard responded in person. Thomas even went as far as to say that he “half-enjoyed it.”
“I felt OK. I saw him [Pogačar] go on the first climb“, at kilometre 10, “and I was quite a way behind,” he recounted.
“But I saw Jonas was not panicking, but jumping as well, and I thought ‘Nah, it’s not gonna keep riding when they’re together’.”
“So I managed to stay on the wheels, follow some guys and work my way up to the front. That’s kind of how I’ve been riding the whole race.”
Thomas recounted that “When we were in front, I looked behind and there was 40-odd guys there and I was, like, ‘this is some day again’. But luckily I felt good so I was half-enjoying it.”
There was a brief moment when Pogačar tried to form a working…
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