Full results and standings after stage five It was not how he would have imagined it happening, in his dreams. But Adam Yates here became the ninth British rider to claim the most coveted jersey in cycling, the maillot jaune awarded to the leader of the Tour de France. The 28-year-old from Bury, who had been lying second in the general classification heading this fifth stage, four seconds off the lead of the lead of Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Julian Alaphilippe, profited from an inexcusable mistake by the Belgian team, who gave Alaphilippe a bidon in the last 20km of the stage from Gap to Privas, which is against regulations. The penalty for an ‘illegal feed’ is 20 seconds. Yates was almost apologetic. He was already showered, changed and waiting on the team bus to return to his hotel when the call came through that he needed to hotfoot it to the podium ceremony. “I don’t think any rider wants to take the yellow jersey like this,” he admitted in a hastily-convened press conference shortly afterwards. “You want to do it by winning or taking time. I don’t think anyone wants to take it like this. But it is what it is.” Somehow it always is with Yates. For someone who actively avoids attention, he has an uncanny knack of finding himself at the centre of it. Four years ago the Mitchelton-Scott rider almost inherited the yellow jersey when Chris Froome was knocked off his bike on Mont Ventoux and, in one of the great demonstrations of what makes him tick, proceeded to run up the ‘Giant of Provence’ in his cycling cleats in a desperate attempt to hang on to his race lead. Earlier in that race, a giant inflatable arch at the 1km-to-go mark came down on Yates’s head when he was looking to win a stage into Lac de Payolle, earning him four stitches in his chin and depriving him of second place on GC. On both occasions Yates was phlegmatic, almost maddeningly so. He wasn’t angry or animated. Perhaps that is why Sir Dave Brailsford is signing him to his Ineos team for next year. Like his twin Simon, the 2018 Vuelta a España winner and a team-mate, Yates is unbelievably grounded. “I mean, yeah probably. I’m pretty sure I’ll get fined if I don’t so I guess I’ll have to,” he shrugged when asked whether he would wear his yellow jersey on Thursday.
