All eyes were on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard as the Tour de France hit the Pyrenees with Wednesday's stage 5 to Laruns, but the day brought another figure into the limelight.
2022 Giro d'Italia winner Jai Hindley thrust himself into the GC conversation with a solo stage win from an unexpected day in the breakaway and with it the yellow jersey. The Australian now heads towards stage 6 and the Tourmalet with 47-second cushion over all of his podium rivals.
The quick, flat start to the stage proved difficult to control, to the extent that Hindley, his teammate Emanuel Buchmann, Wout van Aert, and Giulio Ciccone – all within a minute of the race lead – all got into the 36-man move 30km into the stage.
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Hindley had said in the lead-in to the Pyrenees that he'd be keeping his powder dry for later in the race, but the Australian found himself with a chance to take advantage as UAE Team Emirates let the gap grow out over four minutes.
"It wasn't planned but then you have to react based on the situation," Bora-Hansgrohe directeur sportif Enrico Gasparotto said after the stage. "We took the best out of it, and it was a good, strong group in the front. It probably also helped us that UAE and Jumbo played a little bit. So, to grab your opportunities you must be in the right place at the right moment. That was the case today.
"It wasn't planned to have Jai in the break, that's for sure. But if you think about my lucky underwear from the Giro last year, probably that was a little bit in mind."
Gasparotto's fellow DS Rolf Aldag confirmed that the move wasn't pre-planned, calling it "more like an accident". The German said that Hindley left it all out there to go for the stage win, and as it turned out, yellow.
That huge effort to go clear of the break on the day's final climb of the Col de Marie Blanque 20km from the line could be something that comes back to bite as soon as Thursday's stage 6 over the Col de Tourmalet, but the result means that Bora-Hansgrohe's Tour is already a success, regardless of what comes next.
"He was a podium contender and does that make it better or not? We'll know tomorrow," Aldag said. "Of course, it was a big investment. He invested everything, all-in. Maybe we already have eyes in the back of our head tomorrow because he went really, really deep today. But it doesn't really matter because he has the yellow jersey, and he won the stage.
"It certainly can't be a bad Tour de France anymore. With winning a stage and having the yellow jersey, from now on it can't be a bad Tour."
Hindley may already be a Grand Tour winner, having captured the Giro last year with a come-from-behind ride against Richard Carapaz on the penultimate day up the Passo Fedaia.
He came into this year's Tour firmly placed among the second tier of GC contenders, though, such is the outsize influence of the winners of the previous three editions – Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Like his directors, Hindley was keen to stay in the moment and enjoy the success in Laruns rather than begin to think about how he might defend his jersey and take the fight to the 'big two' over the coming two weeks.
"I think for now I'm just going to savour the moment, enjoy the stage win and being in the yellow jersey," Hindley said in the post-race press conference. "My team has worked really hard to protect me and set me up until now. They've done a great job and I really appreciate it.
"I'm here to ride for GC and I still am. For me it doesn't change that. I'm not putting too much expectation on myself but I'm here to be competitive. I tried really hard to be here in as best shape as possible and we still have a long way to go in the race.
"It's a lot of distance from here to Paris. A lot of things can happen. I also said that it's not only those two on GC – there are a lot of strong guys. They're in good form and I think that I'm also here in not too shabby form. I'm not here to put socks on centipedes, as they say."
