Colombia’s Nairo Quintana produced an inspired ride to win Stage 17 of the Tour, outlasting Ireland’s Dan Martin on the brutal Col de Portet finish, a first ever trip over the newly laid road for the race.
But the real interest was in the race for third as the group containing all three general classification contenders – Thomas, Froome and Tom Dumoulin – battled it out for precious seconds.
Sensing that Froome, at the back of the group, had little strength in his legs, Dumoulin attack from the front with two kilometres to go.
Yellow jersey-bearing Thomas latched onto his wheel immediately as did Primoz Roglic, but four-time Tour winner Froome had no response other than to grit his teeth and stick his tongue out.
Sky team-mate Thomas Bernal stayed with the Brit in an effort to drag him up the steep finish to a short 65km stage.
But it was all in vain as Team Sky’s new star Thomas found energy in spades, attacking again in the closing metres to claim the bonus four seconds available for finishing third and leave Roglic and Dumoulin in his wake.
In total, he increased his advantage of the Team Sunweb rider by nine seconds, but it was Froome who suffered even more on the stopwatch.
He lost 52 seconds to his Sky team-mate, who will surely now be confirmed as their No 1 rider despite the team’s previous insistences that they would share their load equally; Froome having slipped to third, two minutes and 31 seconds off the lead compared to Dumoulin, who is just under two minutes away.
But the Dutchman did his best not to give up hope of catching Thomas.
“I always keep a little bit of faith, a little bit of hope but so far over the last two-and-a-half weeks Thomas has been the strongest,” Dumoulin said afterwards.