It wasn't supposed to end like this. As Fabio Aru inched across the finish line in Morzine on the penultimate stage of the Tour de France, BMC's Amaël Moinard leant across and gave him a sympathetic tap on the shoulder, but the Sardinian seemed but dimly aware of the gesture.
More than 17 minutes had passed since Ion Izaguirre (Movistar) had won the stage, and some 13 had gone by since yellow jersey Chris Froome (Sky) and the rest of the general classification men had rolled past the same point.
Neither the persistent rain nor Aru's sunglasses could mask his tearful expression. He had begun the final mountain stage of the Tour in sixth place overall and harbouring ambitions of climbing onto the podium. It ended, inexplicably, with Aru slipping all the way to 13th place overall in his debut Tour.
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Aru's teammates Diego Rosa, Tanel Kangert, Luis Leon Sanchez and Alexey Lutsenko had paced him, fed him and cajoled him from the moment he was distanced on the lower slopes of the day's final climb, the Col de Joux Plane. By the time they dropped down the other side into Morzine, they were simply keeping him company.
Rosa, Aru's closest friend on the team, placed a hand on the small of his back to guide him though the finish area, but not a word was exchanged between the Astana quintet as they soft-pedalled past the photographers, soigneurs and policemen who lined the road.
On arriving at the Astana team bus, Aru climbed aboard without a word, and Astana directeur sportif Giuseppe Martinelli, too, seemed too distraught to discuss the day's events in any particular detail. "It was an off day," Martinelli said sadly. "If you don't have it, you don't have it. It would have been better if he had spoken sooner, and said he was having a day like that. I have no other words."
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