The Tour de France isn't quite over, then. Stage 6 brought a fightback by Tadej Pogačar after a surprising collapse on Wednesday's first mountain stage to Laruns, but on the road to Cauterets, the Slovenian clawed back 28 seconds of the 1:04 he lost to his great rival for the maillot jaune, Jonas Vingegaard.
The Dane is back in yellow as the race exits the Pyrenees tonight after Jai Hindley shed over two-and-a-half minutes the day after his breakaway escapade. His advantage over Pogačar, however, is reduced to 25 seconds ahead of the next mountain test, the Puy de Dôme on stage 9.
Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma squad once again blew up the race on the mid-stage Col du Tourmalet, causing Hindley's loss and a selection behind the breakaway before the final climb two-man battle.
The result may not have gone his way at the finish line, but neither Vingegaard nor his Dutch squad regretted how they rode the stage. They are in the race lead now, after all.
"Obviously, we wanted to try to attack on the Tourmalet," Vingegaard said in the post-race press conference. "I think it cost some energy, so I don't know if I needed any energy in the end. He was just stronger today, so he really deserved to win."
Climbing super-domestique Sepp Kuss, who put in a big pull on the Tourmalet and is now up to 10th overall himself, echoed those views, adding that their tactics for the day all depended on whether they could place a man – Wout van Aert – in the break of the day to help later on.
"We wanted to put a hard pace on, especially on the Tourmalet," Kuss said after the stage. "That all depended on if we had guys ahead, so when we knew that Wout could make it over the top, Jonas wanted to try to go solo over the top.
"It ended up being two of those guys, like always. From what I heard over the radio it was a one-on-one fight between those guys. You never want to lose those seconds, but we need to be happy with the intention we had during the stage. If different situations arise, then it can also go the other way."
Vingegaard, who will enjoy the 11th day in yellow of his career on Friday's sprint day to Bordeaux, said that he was happy to be back in the fabled jersey.
He may have shed some valuable seconds to his main rival for the Tour's biggest prize but dropping from Pogačar's wheel 2.7km from the line doesn't change that fact.
"First of all, I'm super happy to be back in the yellow jersey," Vingegaard said. "It's always nice to be the wearer of such a nice jersey. Of course, I hoped to at least stay with Tadej, but he was really strong on the last climb. I would also have loved to take the stage, too."
Pogačar's fightback was not a surprise, either. Of course, the UAE Team Emirates leader came back from a larger deficit at a later stage three years ago.
His performance on the 16km finisher on Thursday dispelled any notion that his wrist injury and lack of pre-Tour race days would see Vingegaard waltz off into the distance with yellow.
"I think after yesterday that Pogačar is such a fighter that for sure he wanted to bounce back today. An impressive ride by him but I think we can be happy with how we took on the race and another good mountain stage done," Kuss said.
"I think we've seen that before," Vingegaard added about Pogačar's ability to fight back. "I felt good today and wanted to give it a shot. He was obviously really strong today and deserved to win. I guess it will be an exciting Tour de France this year."
