Geraint Thomas may be the oldest racer in the 2025 Tour de France and this may be his final Grand Tour, but the 39-year-old Welshman showed on Friday's stage 7 that he is determined to keep flying the flag until the very last.
In the thick of the action in a blisteringly fast first hour run off at an average speed of over 53kph, the 2018 Tour de France winner's efforts paid off as he made it into a day-long break of five and stayed away until less than 20 kilometres to go to the finish.
After Marco Haller (Tudor) was the first to crack in the break, Thomas was finally dropped on the Côte-du-village-du-Mûr-de-Bretagne, getting swept up a little further on.
Although fighting for the GC was never going to be a goal in his last Tour de France, Thomas told ITV afterwards that he was determined to have a roll of the dice in a breakaway nonetheless. With Ineos Grenadiers having a tough start to the race, he explained, losing their time trial expert Filippo Ganna on stage 1, getting in such moves is as much a team morale-raising exercise as it is about getting a chance of an actual win.
"It was a bit of a big fight for the break, so it was kinda like - OK, I'll try, because if it's a decent size then you never know," Thomas told ITV.
"You could tell that UAE and Alpecin wanted to control, but just because someone wants to control, you don't let them.
"In the end it was only five of us and they didn't give us any time - it was just lambs to the slaughter, mate."
The fact that the breakaway quintet's gap never rose above two minutes and was more like a minute for most of the final 50 kilometres meant it was clear that they were going to have a very hard time staying away, Thomas added. But that, he said, all formed part of the game.
"Well, you've just got to accept it. You could ride real hard and try and make it harder for them, but then you just dig yourself into a hole anyway, so it's kind of like you just keep chopping off and hope, you just go deep," he reflected.
"But it was always going to be hard. At least there were positives – I didn't have to fight in the peloton all day."
Getting in a break, too, was something that made for a different kind of a stage in other ways, he added, pointing out that "Last year I got in a couple but those were actually days where the break stayed away. This one was slightly different."
"It's been a tough race and as you see it's being dominated by a few teams, but we've got to keep trying."
Finding momentum
Thomas had explained to ITV pre-stage that the most important factor was not really about grabbing opportunities or missing them, rather there was a need to regain momentum inside the team.
With GC contender Carlos Rodríguez nearly five minutes down already, as well as losing Ganna, the main goal was to put the Ineos team back on the map a little.
"We've had a challenging start, so we need to start just getting a bit more success really," Thomas added.
"Not necessarily on the results sheet, but just in the race, those few little wins which builds a bit of momentum then. But we'll get there."
The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling, and a Cyclingnews subscription offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Get all the breaking news and analysis from our team on the ground in France, plus the latest pro tech, live race reports, and a daily subscriber-only newsletter with exclusive insight into the action. Find out more.
