There's only two summit finishes left
Well, there's one proper summit finish but that's stage 17, which isn't normal, so who knows how that's going to pan out... Tomorrow's stage to Mende finishes with a cat 2 climb then a plateau to the finish line - 3km at 10%, steep and hard, but too short to be really selective?
The other Pyrenees stage finishes with a descent, and the climbs might not be long or steep enough to put Thomas out of contention - but given the way the race has gone so far, I'm not putting any money on any predictions.
Surely though, Dumoulin won't make the same mistake twice but even if he chases, he'll have Thomas on his wheel, potentially.
Exactly what Thomas did yesterday, and why he was able to win the stage - let Froome attack, Thomas has shown so far that he is strong enough to stay with Dumoulin and that's all he needs to do. It's a win-win situation for Sky - if Froome can attack and take enough time to take the race lead, so be it, I don't imagine Brailsford cares which one of them is wearing yellow, as long as it's one of them. All Thomas needs to do is sit on Dumoulin's wheel and not crack...
I guess it all depends on how either of them respond to the 2nd GT in a year and whether Thomas has a jour sans (sorry Vantage (bad day)). Stage17 is the mystery package though.
Dumoulin is clearly in great form but given that he does already have the Giro in his legs, in theory it should be more likely that he'll crack than Thomas.
On the other hand, this is uncharted territory for Thomas and he could well go pop on the Peyresourde à la Yates if the pace is high enough from the start of that stage. But which team has the firepower to put Sky under that kind of pressure? Not Sunweb, that's for sure.
Froome's form is hard to judge. He clearly didn't have the legs to make his attack stick yesterday and Dumoulin didn't seem to have too much problem reeling him in.
