Throughout this Tour de France, Tejay van Garderen has handled his post-stage media duties in the manner seemingly demanded by the marginal gains era, perfunctorily answering a few questions from television reporters while warming down outside the BMC team bus, before later being whisked into a team car to travel ahead to the evening's hotel, recovery meal in hand.
There was no need to check the results sheet at Finhaut-Emosson on Wednesday afternoon to establish that van Garderen's hopes of a high overall finish at this year's Tour were over. His actions on reaching the BMC bus, parked on the dam above Lac Emosson, after the finish said it all. Rather than the usual rush to warm down, the American simply unclipped from his pedals and stood with an arm resting against the rear of the bus while a small group of reporters gathered around.
Distanced as Sky and Astana forced the pace on the day's penultimate climb, the Col de le Forclaz, van Garderen understood immediately that his race was run. He reached the finish some 26 minutes down on stage winner Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) and more than 18 behind the yellow jersey of Chris Froome (Sky).
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Van Garderen entered this race aiming for a podium place, but will already have been recalibrating those ambitions when he conceded ground on the Lacets du Grand Colombier at the weekend. Wednesday's first Alpine stage was merely a confirmation of those sensations, and the American took his defeat on the chin.
"In other Tours, I've crashed or gotten sick, but this year I don't know for whatever reason it's not responding. There's really no excuse. I wish I had one," van Garderen said. "I'm going to have to sit down with our performance team and see what we did in the build-up. I've raced against a lot of these guys in a lot of races and been able to be there with them and for some reason this year it's not happening."
Once van Garderen was dropped on the Forclaz, it was immediately clear that his hopes of matching his fifth place finishes of 2012 and 2014 had come to an end, and he confessed that he had little appetite to chase a more minor placing in Paris. He now lies 17th overall, 23:03 down on Froome, and said that his priority in the final four days would be to support his teammate Richie Porte, who remains in podium contention in 6th overall.
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