Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) lost 17 seconds to two leading riders, Tadej Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) and yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), on the difficult climb to the Mende airfield on Saturday. Despite this, he remains in contention for the overall Tour de France.

Pogachar attacked 1km into the uphill climb of the Mende airfield, and Vingegaard pulled away from Thomas, a double winner of the Tour de France.

This was a repeat of the events that unfolded in Planche de Belle Fille and Chatel, and there was a sense of deja vu as the Slovenians and Danes danced their way into a private duel for supremacy in the Tour de France.

But like the stage before it, the gap to Tomas was minimal in the second week in Mende.

The Welshman, who rode at his own pace and thus minimized the damage, remains in third place overall, 2:43 behind Vingegaard. He is also 9 seconds ahead of Thomas' closest rival for the podium, Romain Bardet (DSM).

As Thomas told reporters after the race, "I'm always trying to look ahead, even though I'm concerned about the rest of the pack." And so far, both Pogachar and Vingegaard are still in the GC, albeit a little further back.

"It's steep, it's punchy, it comes with a bang in under 10 minutes, it was over in less than 10 minutes. Thomas said.

"Like I said at the beginning of the day, on a climb like that you can feel the same gap as in Alpe d'Huez.

If Thomas' climb to Mende was meant to limit the gap, given his experience racing cobbled classics, it is no wonder he looked perfectly at home in the first hour when Pogachar attacked early on and Vingegaard answered No wonder. Thomas even said he was "half enjoying it."

"I felt okay. I saw him [Pogachar] going on the first climb," at the 10km mark, "and I was pretty far behind.

"But I saw Jonas jumping without panicking.

"So I managed to stay on my wheels and followed some riders up to the front. That's how I rode for the whole race."

"I was just trying to stay with them.

Thomas said, "When I got to the front, I looked behind me and saw over 40 riders and thought, "Not again today." But luckily I was feeling good, so I was half enjoying myself."

There was a moment when Pogachar tried to form a partnership with Thomas to put pressure on Jumbo, but the Englishman was not keen on the idea.

"He [Pogachar] came to me and said, 'Jumbo is struggling, he is struggling. ' But I was like, 'But if everyone jumps and it's just the GC players, nothing will change anyway.'"

"Obviously Jumbo was having a tough day. But if he wants to jump around and make them suffer, that's fine by me."

Thomas was at pains to point out that he was not denying that he was trying to put pressure on Vingegaard in any situation, to have that kind of joint attack. However, Jumbo Visma had proven that Wout Van Art could control the early moves by doing a lot of the work.

"If a GC player went up the road and Vingegaard had no teammates and he had to ride ....... And if it is a good unit, it slides and slides ......."

Inegegor said.

As for how Ineos Grenadiers sees Thomas competing for GC in the more set-piece battles ahead, lead sport director Steve Cummings said that although Vingegaard and Pogachar again dominated on the climb, the 2018 Neither the Tour de France winner nor the British team will settle for third place in Paris at this point, he said.

"You never think about that, you always think winning is possible, but at this point these two look very strong," Cummings told a small group of reporters on the team bus after the 14th stage.

"I think G's biggest strength is consistency, so if he keeps hanging in there, his experience might finally pay off. It's nice to see him back at such a high level and he deserves it. If he can be consistent, that would be very special."

Teammate Adam Yates also lost a bit of time but held on to sixth place, and Tom Pidcock lost over a minute, dropping from eighth to ninth, but Cummings dismissed the notion that Ineos Grenadier's goal going forward is to finish the race with three in the top 10.

However, as more Ineos Grenadiers athletes entered the stage, they now had other options. Cummings was particularly pleased that Dani Martinez, who had been out of GC options earlier in the race due to illness, was on the mend and was in good enough shape to make the breakaway group.

"The priority is GC, keep fighting until you get to the point where you feel "OK" and then reassess," Cummings said.

"I'm not responsible for controlling the race, but I do enjoy the opportunity to fight for stage wins with the other racers.

Last but not least, Ineos Grenadiers also leads the team standings by more than 30 minutes over Jumbo Visma. While not a priority, Cummings said the team is also "keeping that in the back of our minds."

"But I don't think we should change what we've been doing," he insisted.

"But I don't think we should change what we've been doing," he insisted, "because we've been doing it for a long time. In any case, the Pyrenees would be an important factor in that decision.