On a day when Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) underlined his overwhelming status as Tour de France favourite with a stage win at Longwy, Tom Pidcock gave Ineos Grenadiers reasons to be upbeat after the 22-year-old secured his first top five result in this year's race.
Riding in a finale bearing more than few similarities to the hilly Classics like Amstel Gold and De Brabantse Pijl, Pidcock formed part of the select front group able to handle the radical changes in pace on the trio of sharp little climbs that comprised the stage 6 finish and completed the day in fourth place.
Pidcock had been active in a team role on previous stages, and had been trying to get in the break early on Thursday as well. But as the stage finally played out, the Longwy finale was his first opportunity to duke it out with some of the top contenders of the Tour de France, and he seized it with both hands.
The Briton was as impressed as the rest of the field by Wout van Aert's (Jumbo-Visma) devastating show of strength on the longest stage of the Tour, telling Eurosport in a joking tone, "He’s playing with our balls, isn’t he? I don’t know what to say, really. He’s taking the piss, isn’t he?”
As for his own performance on one of the most testing transition stages of the entire Tour, Pidcock told the TV station it had been a rollercoaster ride.
"My legs came good in the last 30k but after that start and trying to get in the break, I was thinking there’s no way I can contest this final, no way."
However, Pidcock discovered that he was actually in better shape than he had expected, for all he was caught out first by not one Slovenian Grand Tour winner in the last few hundred metres, but two.
"I was feeling good there, and then [Jumbo-Visma's Primož] Roglič went early and caught everybody by surprise. I had to stall and it kind of killed my momentum," he said.
"[Then] I think I did a good sprint, but Pogačar was the strongest there, so fair play.”
Next up for Pidcock is most likely a team role at La Planches des Belles Filles, but his top position on GC, lying fifth at 40 seconds, gives him and his team various cards to play. But longer term, too, coming on the back of the gruelling stage across the cobbles, Thursday's ride augers very well indeed.
