THE BOLD MOUNTAIN

Who knows how that day on Mont Ventoux would have gone had Jack Haig and Geraint Thomas and Primož Roglic not crashed out of contention? Had it not felt like the rest of the race was simply a coronation for Pogacar after stage 8? Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard may have well been pulling for their leader, disposable and yet indisposable, shielding him from the wind, all lined out in their wasp colours, as the threat of attacks loomed.

Instead, on the day, they find themselves in unusual conditions. Van Aert, not known for being a particularly gifted climber - though he is more than competent - is perhaps among the least likely candidates to contest a Ventoux stage, much less a double Ventoux stage, and yet the man in the Belgian tricolore is pedalling away among the eight-man remnants of a breakaway, including slighter contenders like Kenny Elissonde and Julian Alaphilippe and, most dangerously, Bauke Mollema. Vingegaard, meanwhile, is in one of his favourite places: in the wheel of Tadej Pogacar.

The cards