When it's not Tadej Pogačar winning for UAE Team Emirates-XRG in this year's Tour de France, it's his teammates, with Tim Wellens continuing UAE's all-conquering run of success this July with a spectacular solo victory in Carcassonne.
For Wellens, triumphing on stage 15 of the Tour de France meant he has now completed his 'set' of Grand Tour stage victories after two in the Giro d'Italia in 2016 and 2018, and two in a single year in the Vuelta a España in 2020.
Sunday was also a very clear repeat of the same long-distance solo strategy that had netted Wellens the red, black and yellow jersey of Belgian Road Champion less than a month ago, and which he was wearing on Sunday when he blazed a lone 40+ kilometre path to victory in France.
For UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Wellens' win marks their third in four days at the Tour de France, as well as their fifth of this year's race. That Pogačar opted to come and sit behind the winner's press conference table as Wellens was halfway through his own interview, not only underlined the strength of the UAE collective. It was also a clear sign this was not a break taken without the approval of the team boss, either.
"This is one of the best days of this Tour. Tim is so important," Pogačar said during his post-stage round of questions. "Someone who lives so dedicatedly to one goal all year takes his own chance here.
"That's good for the whole group. We will be even stronger now."
Wellens told Sporza, "I knew I'd be on an elite list with winners of stages in all the Grand Tours. I had time to enjoy it. I actually wanted to raise my bike at the finish, but I was so happy I forgot.
"I don't know if a Belgian title is more important or not. I put it somewhere in the same league, even though more people watch the Tour."
Regardless of which was more important, the similarities with Wellens' triumph in the Belgian National Championships were strikingly close.
"I was doubting about whether to go before the climb," Wellens said, discussing how he had broken out of a four-man group that reached the Cat.2 Pas du Sant, the last categorized ascent of the stage, with a small advantage over a group of chasers.
"At the top, I sensed I had my chance. I had to create a gap as quickly as possible so that the riders behind me would look at each other."
Former Tour de France stage winner Victor Campenaerts from arch-rival team Visma-Lease a Bike was also in the move, but Wellens said that he and his fellow Belgian both started bluffing their rivals on the Cat.2 Pas de Sant.
"Victor and I were kind of acting. I knew I wasn't supposed to finish with him," he explained.
Monday is Belgium's National Holiday, but Wellens said he had not planned on going for - and taking - his country's fifth stage victory this year by way of early celebration.
"To be honest, maybe I forgot it was the national day, it was just a nice way of going for a stage."
He had not, he said, been thinking about saving energy for this stage when he got dropped early on the day before, before the first mountains.
"It was a coincidence, my teammates actually said that at the start, too, but after spending a few days in the polka-dot jersey in the first week, it was really nice to get this opportunity.
"Yesterday, I had a mechanical on the first big climb of the day, of course, I would have preferred to have been with my teammates, they were really impressive to control the race. But it wasn't the plan for today."
Why he had actually got in the move, he said in another interview, was that he was following multiple attacks in the bunch, "I jumped in once and there I was in the break of the day.
"I hesitated for a while, because I would have had to leave Tadej behind, but I knew he would be very happy for me if I managed to stay away to the finish.
"I saw an opportunity, I seized it, and I had the legs to finish it off. But I would trade this victory in an instant for the yellow jersey with Tadej in Paris."
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