Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) may have won the stage 5 TT at the Tour de France today, and gained time on all of his rivals, but he was denied the yellow jersey by just eight seconds.
The man still in the race lead is Mathieu van der Poel, the Alpecin Fenix rider having pulled out one of the rides of the day on today's test to hold the jersey he took when he won stage 2.
Having played down his chances in the 27.2km test into Laval Espace Mayenne today, Van der Poel claimed an excellent 5th on the stage, losing just 31 seconds to the flying Pogačar.
And now with no major climbs to come tomorrow or Friday, Van der Poel may hold the jersey until Saturday. That would top off what has already been a dream debut Tour for him and his ProContinental team.
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Ireland's Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation), who is riding for a stage win in the mountains rather than for GC, was 105th in today's TT, some 4:02 down on winner Pogačar.
While the continuing fairytale for Dutchman Van der Poel has been a favourite story so far on the race, Pogačar really threw down the gauntlet today. He won last year's Tour by claiming victory on the penultimate stage TT at La Planche des Belles Filles and today's performance was cut from the same cloth.
He won the day by 19 seconds from TT specialist Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), the Swiss and European champion. Jonas Vingegaard, the 24-year-old Dane riding for Jumbo Visma, was 3rd at 27 seconds, with his team mate Wout van Aert in 4th at 30 seconds.
Of the big general classification men, Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) got closest to Pogačar; placing 7th and losing 44 seconds to the stage winner and defending Tour champion.
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Of the other men who have, or had, aspirations to take yellow, Geraint Thomas (Ineos) lost 1:18 to Pogačar, Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) lost 1:41, Richard Carapaz (Ineos) lost 1:43, Wilco Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe) 1:48 and Miguel Angel Lopez (Movistar) 2:08.
The gaps mean while Pogačar failed to take yellow today, the stage was ideal for him; gaining time on everyone yet not taking yellow and so not being forced to assume responsibility for the race lead just yet.
He is now 2nd overall and the gaps back to his GC rivals are very much in his favour. General classification outsiders Van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) are now 3rd and 4th some 22 and 40 seconds respectively behind Pogačar.
Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-Nippo) is now 7th and 1:21 behind Pogačar, with Carapaz 8th now 1:36 down on the defending champion.
Roglič is 10th overall, some 1:40 down on his young compatriot. Thomas is 12th and is 1:46 down on Pogačar, with Enric Mas (Movistar) now 14th and 1:50 down on today's stage winner.
While there is a very long way to go, the crashes suffered already by the likes of Thomas and Roglič, combined with the time they have now lost, mean they have a mountain to climb to beat Pogačar.
However, Roglič arguably did much better today than one might have expected given his injuries and he has vowed to continue fighting.
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