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What a difference a couple of days in the Pyrenees makes. At its halfway point, the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France seemed to have settled into a familiar pattern for Team Sky, but a 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:300-metre mountain runway and a 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:101-kilometre mountain thriller have thrown the winners of four of the past five ed✱itions into unchartedꦿ waters.

The theme of each of those four victories, the first with 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and the subsequent three with 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Chris Froome, was an early grab for the maillot jaune and total control thereafter. On all four occasions, the winner ꦑspent at least 14 consecutive days in yellow beforeܫ being crowned in Paris.

When Froome took the lead of this edition on La Planche des Belles Filles 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:on stage 5, having already gained time in the opening-day time trial, it looked like business as usual, and, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:despite the loss of Geraint Thomas𝓡, the embarrassment of Sky domestique strength only reinf🥂orced that notion.

Yet Froome's Peyragudes wobble saw the team lose yellow at the Tour for only the second time, and for the first time to a GC rival. The sense of shock on the mountain, enhanced by the way Sky had stifled proceedings for the pre𝓡vious 214 kilometres, was palpable.

Froome, for the first time, finds himself chasing🎶 the Tour in the second half of the race, yet this is als♕o new ground for Sky in that they have suddenly found themselves with two cards to play, rather than one.

168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Mikel Landa caused ripples as he rode away from Froome on the Peyragudes runway, and made waves on Friday as he jumped from 10th to fifth overall on the explosive short stage to Foix. The Spaniard is now, in theory, a potential winner of the Tour de France. Sky haven't been in the position of having two of those since 2012, when Froome, despite a couple of pointed attacks, had to cede to Wiggins, the 'chosen one' for the first British victory o𒈔f the Tour de France.

A repeat of 2012 tensions?

The Frenchman 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Warren Barguil won the stage to Foix, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:on Bastille Day no less, yet the story of the day revolved around Sky, and that was evidenced by the buzz at the team's bus beyond th⛎e finish line. Landa had been out in front all day, coming close to being virtual maillot ja🧜une, which took the onus off Froome and Sky and placed it onto race leader Fabio Aru and Romain Bardet, both of whom lacked support.

"It was perfect for us," Team Sky DS Nicolas Portal said in Foix, and the general message from all parties 🍃at the Sky bus was one of self-congratulation.

Indeed, by the end of the day, the podium contenders had failed to put time into Froome – a neces🎀sity given the penultimate-day time trial – and had let a danger man – danger men, even, as Nairo Quintana was also up the road – back into contention.

Read more on this article

• 168澳洲5最新开♔奖结果:Everything to play for in the 2017 Tour de France
• Landa: I'd love to win the Tour de France but I know𝓀 my place
• Froome: Landa is a real⭕ thr🐠eat for Tour de France title
• Shades of Wiggins controversy as Landa rides away 𝓡from Froome at Peyragudes

From one side, it looks like a tactical masterstroke, yet there are multiple angles and myriad complexities to this situation. For a start, there will be question marks over whether they really wanted Landa in yellow. Granted, it was 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:UAE Team Emirates doing most of the work in the yellow jersey group, not Sky, but 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Michal Kwiatkowski, up the road with Quintana, chose to drop and work for Froome instead of continuing tℱo try and reach Landa at the head of🌼 the race. And Kwiatkowski did pull, and Froome did attack towards the top of the final climb, and again on the descent to the finish.

It has to be pointed out that Landa is something of a maverick, that he's not on the best terms with Sky and almost certainly on his way out at the end of the season, and that he's had previous. At Astana, he felt he could have won the 2015 Giro had the team🍌 backed him and not Fabio Aru, while at the Vuelta later that year he brazenly ignored team orders to take personal glory on the queen stage.

Could Landa rip out his earpiece and stab Froome in the back? It's far from likely, but not beyond the realms of possibility – what's 🤪certain is that it'd be a storyline for the ages.

Interestingly, there was no immediate post-stage communication between Froome and Landa ou🍌tside the Sky bus, with the pair warming down almost side-by-side without as much as making eye contact. Perhaps aware of the throng of waiting television cameras, Froome then went over to Landa with a smile and a pat on the back.

Everyone was certainly on message in front of the microphones. Landa, despite some heavy prodding by Spanish media, insisted he knew his place and that Froome was the clear top dog. Froome himself praised Landa's work and the tactical dimension it has opened up. Portal excitably spoke of the 'cards🐟' now at his disposal. D♈ave Brailsford said he was "very happy Landa got away", a move that "tactically made all the difference".

"We have one leader, which is Froome, and then Landa, who's clearly very stron🔯g," said Portal, settling the sco🅷re. "We're still focused on Froomey, but that opened the cards for us really well."

Michal Kwiatkowski leading Chris Froome, Romain Bardet, Fabio Aru and Rigoberto Uran (TDW Sport)

Balancing act

The question, noꦯw, is: how do Sk💝y play those cards from here?

"Exactly the same as today," was Portal's response, indicating that Landa will again be sent up the road in the Alps, and maybe even beforeh💞and.

"We'll put the pressure on even more. When you have two such strong riders on one team, and the other 🧔leaders don't have anyone t♛o support them, that complicates things, that puts pressure on, and we can play those cards."

Sky have a luxury, th🦋at's for sure, but also a delicate balancing act.

As Brailsford himself pointed out: "For two guys on GC to really work, if you send someone up the road, then the other GC le🦹aders have to genuinely feel the threat that that guy can win. Otherwise, it doesn't work."

In other wordꦬs, Aru, Bardet et al must believe Sky are willing to win the Tour de France with Mikel Landa. That's why Kwiatkowski's and Froome's actions on Friday were curious; if there's a hint that Froome is the 'chosen one' in the manner of Wiggins five years ago, his rivals might soon call bluff.

Asked directly whether he'd be happy to see Landa take the yellow jersey, Brailsford replied: "If it comes and if it 𒀰tactically feels like the right thing to dಞo, then absolutely."

Yet despite all the talk of cards, there are doubts about how cr✱eative Sky want, and indeed need, to be.

Froome is only six seconds off the lead of the race, and he should, on paper, gain a chunk of time on the penultimate day. In the Dusseldorf time trial he put 35 seconds into all GC rivals – more into Aru and Bardet – and the Marseille course is 8.5km longer. In other words, Froome is a virtual leader of sorts at this point, and it's the others,﷽ not least Aru, who still have to attack.

Brailsford, with a straight face, waxed lyrical in Foix about the way his team had engagꦯed in the sort of "proper racing" that "attracted us all to the sport in the first place", having "fun" instead of "defend defend defend". Yet he also suggested that they'd be happy with the status quo.

ไ"If the race stayed the same now all the way to the time trial, we'd be happy," he said. "We don't need to move. If it stays like it⛦ is, we'd take that."

It's hard to predict what happens next, but then that's the beauty of it. Excitement thus far had been limited to confined bursts – 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Peter Sagan's disqualification, the white-knuckle drama of that stage in the J꧑ura mountains – but the Pyrenees have brought the Tour de France to life, and left us with aꦕ race brimming with intrigue.