For a nation with just four riders in the Tour de France, Slovenia did an incredible job dominating the headlines on stage 7 today, the longest day of this year's La Grande Boucle.
Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious), a former U23 world champion, won the day. His effort for climbers' points on the first climb, almost 90km from the finish, led to the winning move forming off the front of the large breakaway that dominated the stage.
One of the pre-race favourites, Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), was dropped and lost time, ruling him out of the hunt for yellow. And Roglič's faltering performance, after his crash on stage 3, only served to underline Tadej Pogačar's position as odds-on favourite to win the race again for UAE-Team Emirates with one week's racing now completed.
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The only Irish rider in the race, Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) was 66th today, finished alone at 9:42, but with his sights firmly set on the harder climbing stages, which start this weekend.
With 249.1km to race today between Vierzon and Le Creusot, a 29-rider breakaway got up the road and built a lead of over seven minutes at one point. There was serious firepower in the group, with yellow jersey Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin Fenix) and Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma) in the move.
Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was also up there, chasing and securing maximum points at the intermediate sprint. Eventual stage winner Mohorič was among the strongmen in the move and he had designs on taking the climbers' jersey.
He put in a big effort on the Côte de Château-Chinon, almost 90km from the finish, and that effort saw him pull clear with Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal). About 40km later they were joined by Jasper Stuyven (Trek Segafredo) and Victor Campanaert (Qhubeka NextHash).
While there were plenty of attacks behind the four riders that pressed on from the breakaway, the leaders have more than a minute in hand. And none of the surges from the original breakaway, which was trimmed back by the repeated climbs in the final 90km, was ever in danger of closing the gap to the leaders.
By the cat 2 Signal d’Uchon, with just under 20km to go, Campanaerts was already gone from the front group and Mohorič also shook off Van Moer and Stuyven on that climb, powering all the way to the finish to win.
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He took the victory by 1:20 from Stuyven before another 20 seconds would elapse before the remains of the original breakaway arrived to sprint it out for 3rd place.
Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) claimed that sprint. Van Aert and Van der Poel had been distanced by that group but got back onto it just before the finish, with Van der Poel immediately contesting the sprint for 3rd on the stage but only managing 4th.
Just 18 of the original 29 riders in the breakaway survived to the finish and they were stretched out from 1st to 18th over almost five minutes. The peloton was thinned down to just 32 riders and it finished 5:15 down on the stage winner.
It contained all of the general classification threats, apart from Van Aert - who was up the road - and his team mate Roglič, who was out the back. Roglič finished 9:03 down on the stage winner and was 3:48 down on the remains of the peloton.
Roglič was dropped on the cat 2 Signal d’Uchon, with just under 20km to. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) was also distanced there by the remains of the peloton but got back on. And his team mate Richard Carapaz went on the attack in the finale; opening a gap of over 40 seconds on the group before being caught right on the line.
Van der Poel holds yellow and he was the only rider in the top 20 today who didn't change position in the overall. Van Aert is now up one place to 2nd overall, at 30 seconds, and he might take yellow tomorrow.
Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) is now 3rd overall at 1:49; moving up eight places overall after placing 5th from the breakaway today. And stage winner Matej Mohorič has moved up 29 places overall to 4th at present.
Tomorrow's stage 8 takes the riders 150.8km from Oyonnax to Le Grand-Bornand and features three cat 1 climbs, one after the other, inside the final 55km. The last of those climbs, the Col de la Colombiére, is crested 14.5km from the finish, with a descent all the way to the line.
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