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 alliance with Thomas to put Jumbo under pressure, but the Briton was not overly taken with the idea.
"He [Pogačar] come to me and said 'Jumbo are struggling, they're struggling'. But it was like, 'yeah, but, if we all jump and it's just GC guys, it makes no difference anyway.'"
"Obviously Jumbo were having a hard day, but if he wants to jump around and make it hard for them, it's fine by me."
Thomas was at pains to point out that he did not reject making that kind of joint attack to try and put Vingegaard under pressure under all circumstances. But Jumbo-Visma had proved more than able to control the early moves with Wout van Aert doing much of the spadework, and for that sort of long-distance attack to work, the combination of riders on the front had to be the right one.
"If a GC guy did go up the road and Vingegaard doesn't have teammates and he's got to ride… you're looking at numbers all of the time, and the combinations. And if it is a good unit you slip and slide."
As for how Ineos Grenadiers look at how Thomas will fight for GC from hereon in the more set-piece battles, lead sports director Steve Cummings said that although Vingegaard and Pogačar had dominated on the climbs again, neither the 2018 Tour de France winner nor the British squad were settling for third place in Paris at this point.
"You never think like that, you always think the win is possible, but at the moment those two are looking very strong," Cummings told a small group of reporters at the team bus after stage 14.
"I think G's biggest strength is consistency so if he keeps hanging in there, his experience might pay in the end. It's nice to see him back at such a high level, and he deserves it as well, 'cos he's had a lot of bad luck. And when he gets a consistent run, it's pretty special."
Although teammates Adam Yates also lost a little time but remains in sixth and Tom Pidcock lost over a minute and has slid from eighth to ninth, Cummings rejected the idea that Ineos Grenadiers' goal from here on was to end the race with three riders in the top 10.
However, with more Ineos Grenadiers riders getting in the mix for the stages, they had other options. Cummings said he was particularly pleased that Dani Martinez, whose GC options went out the window due to sickness in the first part of the race, was on the road to recovery and had been feeling good enough to get in the breakaway.
"The priority is the GC and we'll keep fighting until the point when we think 'OK', and then we'll reassess," Cummings said.
"Whilst we don't have the responsibility to control the race, we can enjoy the opportunity for other riders to fight for stage wins, and it was nice to see Dani doing that after being sick."
Last but not least, Ineos Grenadiers are leading the teams classification by more than half an hour on Jumbo-Visma, too. Although not a priority, Cummings said the team were keeping that "at the back of our mind" as well.
"But I don't think we should change anything we've been doing," he insisted. "If we keep doing things the way we are, then it should take care of itself, hopefully." The Pyrenees, in any case, will likely be the key judge of that - and of Thomas' options overall, too.
