Thomas established as main man after Froome cracks

Welshman extends lead to almost two minutes Defending champion accepts supporting role

There are still three more days to go until Paris. Three long, dangerous days, one of which, tomorrow’s gargantuan 200-kilometre stage from Lourdes to Laruns, features some enormous cols, including the Tourmalet and the Aubisque. But this felt decisive; this felt like the day when Geraint Thomas finally seized control of the maillot jaune for good, and at the same time put his team-mate Chris Froome decisively in his shadow.

Thomas took a huge step towards becoming the third British rider to win the Tour de France as he claimed third place in the final summit finish of the race yesterday, the Col du Portet. The Welshman crossed the line 47 seconds behind the winner of Stage 17, Movistar’s Nairo Quintana.

Far more importantly, Thomas finished five seconds ahead of yellow jersey rivals Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) and Primoz Roglic (Lottonl-jumbo), dropping them with a few hundred metres to go to the finish line and picking up four bonus seconds for his efforts. The nearest he came to being derailed was when an idiotic fan stuck an arm out and tried to grab him on the final ramp to the finish.

The Sky haters here are less energised by Thomas than they are by Froome, but they still might pose the biggest threat to his chances of winning this race.

Fortunately he stayed upright, and as a result stretched his overall lead to 1min 59sec over Dumoulin, with Froome, who endured a difficult day, dropping to third overall, 2min 31sec behind. Froome was unable to live with the pace as the stage entered the rarefied air above 2,000m, slipping off the back of the yellow jersey group and finishing 48 seconds behind his team-mate.

The shift in their rhetoric afterwards was noticeable, with Froome now acknowledging Thomas was the main man. “It was a tough day, an intense day, but I’ve no regrets. ‘G’ has ridden such an amazing race, he deserves to be in yellow and fingers crossed he holds it now until Paris,” Froome said.

It was a gracious response from the champion, who after two weeks of being booed and spat at, was even taken out by a local gendarme yesterday as he descended from the summit.

Froome’s hopes of winning that record-equalling fifth Tour title are now hanging by a thread. At 33, he knows he might never get another chance, but he said he would now work for his team-mate.

“That’s professional cycling, that’s what a team is all about,” he said. “I’m happy just to be in the position I’m in. I’ve won the last three grand tours I’ve done. It’s been a tough build-up for me but I’ll still fight for the podium and obviously we want to see G up there in yellow.

“I think he’s got an almost twominute lead on Dumoulin, which is a pretty comfortable buffer. He looks pretty strong and I imagine he’ll be able to finish it off. We just need to look after him now.”

Thomas had predicted that yesterday’s short 65km stage from Bagneres-de-luchon would be decisive. And so it proved, although it took a while to warm up. The much-vaunted “motorsport-style” grid start was a damp squib.

The idea of setting the riders off in general classification order, with the top 20 riders fanned out across the road in arrow formation, had always felt a little gimmicky. It may be a while before we see it again. Organisers were hoping that some of the GC riders might attack from the gun, but no one was prepared to risk it and instead Sky controlled the break as usual.

The race only really came alive on the final hors categorie climb up to the Col du Portet, a 16km drag so long and so steep that Sky’s sporting director Nicolas Portal rated it tougher than Alpe d’huez.

Quintana, a rider who had barely landed a blow in this Tour, attacked first, responding to an acceleration by Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) – who would finish second – to launch his bid for glory. But the real race was taking place behind them.

Froome, with May’s Giro d’italia in his legs, began to struggle near the summit, unable to respond to attacks by Dumoulin and Roglic and needing assistance from Sky’s Colombian domestique, Egan Bernal, who dropped back to help him.

Thomas, though, looked at ease, following wheels before launching his own late acceleration. “I guess so,” he replied when asked whether he felt the team were now all in for him. Thomas added that a team radio message from Froome in the final kilometres, admitting he was in trouble, had given him confidence. “I was feeling good,” he said. “Obviously I didn’t want Froomey to have a bad day like he did. It just gave me confidence, that someone of his stature was struggling.”

The mantle has been passed. The boy from Cardiff is tantalisingly close to being crowned prince of Paris.