Tour de France 2018: Team Sky's Geraint Thomas looks the part in yellow but Chris Froome is snapping at his heels

AP

On Thursday, as the dust settled on one of the most memorable Tour de France stages ever, Team Sky posted a picture of the Tour’s current general classification one-two.

Geraint Thomas, in yellow for another day after the first back-to-back mountain-top Tour stage wins since 1976, stood with a half-smile, giving a thumbs-up.

Next to him, Chris Froome grinned, pointing to the jersey, the inference clear that Thomas was merely keeping it warm for him until the Tour’s marathon final week.

On a day when his fellow Whitchurch High School alumni Sam Warburton was calling time on his own sporting career — Thomas taking time after Alpe d’Huez to pass on his best wishes — he is currently at the pinnacle of his.

AFP/Getty Images

Before the Tour, Thomas declared himself in the best shape ever, his confidence boosted by matching and exceeding some of the best climbers in winning the Criterium du Dauphine. Following two consecutive stage wins, that confidence will be boosted further.

The 32-year-old Welshman could ride into Paris a week on Sunday still in yellow, but such an outcome is unlikely, not least of all in Thomas’s mind.

“I mean it when I say Froomey is still our leader,” he said. “He knows how to race for three weeks. For me, who knows? I could have a bad day and lose 10 minutes.”

Simon Yates is a case in point. The suggestion was he was the man to finally eclipse Froome at a Grand Tour during the Giro d’Italia, but the latter’s infamous stage 19 solo ride not only catapulted him to an unlikely race win, Yates had arguably his worst ever day in the saddle, losing 39 minutes and dropping from first to 18th in the process.

To suggest that Froome has struggled to keep pace with Thomas is far-fetched. While Thomas has looked the stronger of the pair in the Alps, Froome yesterday conceded just three seconds — and on a climb where he has always struggled.

It was on the same climb in 2015 that the peloton’s dominant force finally looked frail, his Tour lead more than halved as Nairo Quintana soared up the mountain. So, losing just three seconds to Thomas and nothing to his other overall rivals will boost, rather than dent, his confidence.

If Froome is rattled, he is not showing it. But if, as expected, he is to join the Tour’s pantheon of greats and win a record-equalling fifth Tour, he will have to do so differently.

In each of his four Tour victories to date, he has worn yellow for 14 or 15 days on each occasion. With a flat stage tomorrow, two medium mountain stages and a rest day to follow, his first realistic chance to take the lead is after this year’s longest stage, the 135 miles from Carcassone to Bagneres-de-Luchon on Tuesday.

In contrast, Thomas is riding into the unknown.

He has been in reach of the podium before, only to suffer one dire day, while crashes at last year’s Giro and Tour will make him all too aware that his aspirations can suddenly come undone.

Froome described the curtain call on the Alps as “just a dream scenario for us right now”.

As Sky’s big earner — on £4million a year and, with his paymasters needing to justify that price tag — he knows when push comes to shove that Thomas and the rest of the team will work for him.

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