Chris Froome may have lost five minutes on the summit finish at Route d'Occitanie today but he showed some of his old fight, and in more ways than one.
The four-time Tour de France winner did a prolonged turn on the front up the Col de Beyrède as Team Ineos lined up one after the other to split the group to pieces and set up Egan Bernal for a solo win at the top of the climb.
It was the first time Froome had been on the front of a race doing serious damage since he attacked in the closing stages of stage 4 at Tour de Yorkshire into Leeds last year to set up team mates Eddie Dunbar and Chris Lawless.
This time around, after Froome had done his turn he lost time to the group; the stage won by Bernal from team mate Pavel Sivakov, with Froome finishing just over five minutes down and Bernal taking the race lead.
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As Froome, who is still on the comeback trail after his crash last year, was riding up the climb with Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) they passed a small group of spectators on a hairpin, one of whom booed Froome.
The Team Ineos rider looked back, gesticulated at the spectator while shouting back at him; all of which was recorded in the video below by another spectator by the roadside.
When the video was shared online the Twitter user who posted it said he believed Froome had shouted "vas chier connard" - an explicit way of telling someone to "get stuffed".
It was all done with plenty of humour as the man who shared the video said: "Thank you Chris Froome for this beautiful moment! He is absolutely right."
While Froome may be some way of his best, his stint on the front today up the final climb and his remonstrating with the spectator suggest there's still plenty of fight left in the 35-year-old.
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