His Sky teammate Richie Porte had already dictated the pace at the base of the short climb to Mûr de Bretagne, and when Chris Froome himself moved to the front approaching the final kilometre, it felt the act of a man already demarcating his territory as the patron of this Tour de France.
As the Tour’s vigorous opening round draws to a close, the yellow jersey leads his direct rivals not just in real time, but also on a more hypothetical scorecard – of the Big Four pre-race favourites, he has been the most impressive thus far. In his post-stage press conference, however, Froome denied that there had been any attempt at psychological point-scoring in his cameo in the finale of stage 8.
"To be completely honest with you, it wasn’t really about trying to show my dominance over the race or anything like that, it was more about keeping an eye on things and making sure that none of my rivals got the jump on me," Froome said.
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"The legs felt good, but given the conditions with the headwind up there and the fact that it was a relatively short climb, I didn’t think today was a day that would make big differences, it was more about staying at the head of affairs and staying out of trouble."
Certainly, the Breton Mûr did not separate the general classification contenders to quite the same extent as the Mur de Huy last Monday, as Froome, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) all finished together, 10 seconds down on stage winner Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-La Mondiale). Yet there was an unexpected dividend for that trio when Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was shaken loose in the final 700 metres, conceding a further ten seconds to his overall rivals.
"I was very surprised to hear that actually, especially given that up the final it was predominantly cross-headwind up there, which made it relatively easier to stay on the wheels. So I was really surprised to hear that, especially with such a big group in front," Froome said.
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