After one of the worst days of this year's Tour de France, Michal Kwiatkowski declared that anything could happen in this year's title race with his solo victory on stage 13 at Grand Colombier on Friday.

For Kwiatkowski, the victory was unexpected. Kwiatkowski broke away from a large breakaway group that UAE Team Emirates was unable to bring back completely, despite working all day long.

By the time they reached the summit finish, Polish National Champion Kwiatkowski had taken on the role of superdomestique, supporting Carlos Rodriguez and Tom Pidcock in the top three overall places.

In the past, Kwiatkowski has only been released at the Tour if his team, Ineos Grenadiers, lost the GC leader. Memorably, he won the final stage of the 2020 Tour next to then-teammate Richard Karapas after Egan Bernal, for example, gave up defending his title.

But that was not the case on Friday. Kwiatkowski won, and the two young men remained in the top 10 overall.

At the post-race press conference, Kwiatkowski reflected on then and now and was elated.

"The stage with Richard was a full race from start to finish, except I enjoyed the last 15 km.

"Today was quite the opposite. For the first 120km, I thought I might be a passenger and support Carlos and Tom somewhere on or before the final climb. I figured if they were there, I would bring them ice, bottles, etc.

"But all of a sudden I had four minutes. 'I'm in good shape today. ' When I caught up with the guys who had run away from me, when I heard about the advantage, I was just euphoric."

"It was intense to start realizing that I could actually win a stage," Kwiatkowski continued.

"In half an hour I had a totally different feeling. Crazy, crazy."

"Yesterday was probably the worst day on the bike in this Tour.

"Everything turned upside down. It's a totally strange and different feeling."

Stage 13 is the first of a triple-header in the high mountains, and Ineos Grenadier deputy team principal Rod Ellingworth has an open outlook.

"I really don't know what will happen. Honestly, it depends on what (Jonas) Vingegaard and (Tadei) Pogachar want to do.

"For us, we want to see Tom and Carlos push themselves and test themselves. That's our goal."

"They are both in great shape. After the Puy de Dome they have a lot of confidence.

Pogachar finished the stage in third place behind Kwiatkowski and Maxime Van Gils (Lot Dostini).

Defending champion and current maillot jaune Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), Pidcock, Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), third in the overall ranking, and Rodriguez were 12th.

Colombier was Kwiatkowski's day, but it wasn't long before the faithful servant, clearly enjoying the moment, was asked about his teammate again, with stage 14 expected to further shake up the overall standings.

"Anything is possible, even winning the Tour. You never really know. At the moment we are having a great race and we are just going through the process," Kwiatkowski said.

"Jonas and Taddei are really high level. But I don't know, it's a bike race.