With his win on stage 17, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) has pulled ahead of Tour de France leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the fight for the green jersey, but the GC leader is not totally out of what is usually considered a sprinter's classification.
The pair had been an unusual duo at the top of the points standings, with Pogačar's four stage wins and the spread-out sprint stages meaning that the GC rider was only 11 points behind Milan at the start of stage 17.
However, with Lidl-Trek heavily targeting the jersey as an end goal of this Tour, they committed to the plan today, picking up points at the intermediate and the win to bag 61 points and a better margin for Milan.
"For sure, it was a tough Tour de France up until now, I have to say, but the green jersey, we achieved today, 61 points, so I'm really happy for that," Milan said after the stage.
"It was one of our goals in the beginning of today. I think it's never easy to have a real specific plan and then to achieve it, so I'm really happy for that. In the next days we will try to give our best to take as many points as we can in the intermediate sprints, and then we will see."
However, with 20 points available for the winner of even the hardest stages, and more for the less difficult days, Milan's lead is not mathematically secure, and the team knows that Pogačar could still fight his way back in if he wins more stages.
"We always have to keep in mind that Tadej can win 50 points in Paris as well, so we have to be careful," Lidl-Trek DS Steven de Jongh said.
With that in mind, there will be no sit-back-in-the-gruppetto days for Milan in the Alps, as he'll need to target the intermediate sprints in the coming days.
"Firstly, picking up 50 points today was the most important thing, and the points left over in the [intermediate] sprint," De Jongh said of the team's plan to secure green. "And now the next two days, we have to pick up the 20 points from the [intermediate sprint], so the next two days, it's quite close from the start, so I think we will see controlling again tomorrow."
As for Milan, achieving green is obviously a goal, but like the rest of the peloton, he is aware that he can only do so much in the face of Pogačar.
"With Tadej, he's a cycling rockstar, so we will see also with the points that he will achieve," the Italian said. "From my side, I will just try to give my best to bring this jersey as far as we can."
As De Jongh pointed out, Sunday's Paris stage, with the addition of Montmartre, weights it more towards the punchy riders than the sprinters, could be a problem, but Milan is not writing off that stage or giving in to not being amongst the results.
"I don't want to start already thinking about losing the chance," Milan said when asked if he was disappointed sprinters might not get the chance to sprint on stage 21.
"But it will be bit more complicated to control it, it will be a different scenario of course. I never did Champs-Élysées before, and I already spoke with the guys who did the Olympic Games last year and they said it was a bit chaotic already with the 50, 60 riders that arrived there in the final. So for sure it will be a big fight to take this climb in the first position.
"We will try to give our best, but I want to take it stage by stage, I want to focus first on tomorrow, and then for Champs-Élysées, I'm sure on Sunday that we will give our best to achieve the best result we can."
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