Magnus Cort may have come to the end of his week-long stint in the polka dot best climber's jersey at the Tour de France in Lausanne on Saturday, but his work at the race was far from done there.
The Dane, who featured in the breakaway on each of the first three road stages of the race to rack up 11 mountain points, tried again at La Super Planche des Belles Filles but succeeded in getting out front on Tuesday's 10th stage to Megève.
Not only did he make the Tour de France stage breakaway for the fourth time in nine days, but he went on and took the win at the end of another fast day out over 148.5km in the Alps.
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Cort was part of a 10-rider group who contested the finish at the end of the 22km climb to the line, having been dropped from the group 6km earlier before working his way back along with several others inside the final kilometre.
His win, taken just centimetres ahead of Nick Schultz (BikeExchange-Jayco), now stands alongside six stages at the Vuelta a España as well as his triumph from the breakaway in Carcassonne at the 2018 Tour.
"I couldn't have dreamed of a better Tour so far for me than this," Cort said in the post-stage press conference. "It was huge for me already with the polka dot jersey in Denmark and then taking a stage win here – obviously it was a dream for me to take a stage win as well, but from hoping and dreaming to doing it's a long way.
"I'm immensely happy and I have to thank [teammate Alberto] Bettiol a lot, because without him on the front obviously I wouldn't have benefitted from that sitting in the wheels for sure I wouldn't have made it to the finish with the first guys."
Cort's victory wasn't immediately clear to onlookers, with he and Schultz very evenly matched in the sprint for the line at the Altiport above Megève. The two jumped past Bahrain Victorious veteran Luis León Sánchez, who had made a solo attack which split the remains of the break 6km earlier.
The victory wasn't immediately clear to Cort, either, who said that he wasn't sure who had won as he and Schultz sprinted home.
"I think I realised maybe a minute after the finish," he said. "First, I had some journalists around me and then in my earpiece as well I had our sports director. It was a bit of a wait, but I had enough to do with just breathing.
"[After being dropped] I kept riding and pacing myself and somehow I ended up being back in the group and we were all together in the finish straight. It's unbelievable and the finish suited me pretty well.
"I don't think about it in my head at that moment. I gave it everything until I didn't really have anything left to give."
After being in three breaks earlier in the race and spending hundreds of kilometres at the front – including his long solo effort racking up mountain points on stage 3 in his home country – Cort ended up with little to materially show for his efforts, barring what is now fourth place in the mountain classification.
When he was asked whether his stage win is a reward for those efforts, he replied saying that the focus had changed following those early days in what were always going to be fruitless breakaways.
"I don't know if any victory is more deserved than others but some of the breaks early on in this Tour weren't with the goal of making it to the finish," he said. "It was more about the points for the mountain competition and so here these last days the focus has changed and it already pays off."
