Alberto Contador rolls back the years but comes up short on the Galibier

There were still more than 125 kilometres remaining in the queen stage of the Alps when Contador threw caution to the wind and attacked the main pack on the Col de la Croix de Fer – which might have been why no one responded except the forlorn figure of Nairo Quintana.

After all, Chris Froome losing sleep as Messieurs Quintana and Contador ride clear on a climb amounts to the hypothetical concern felt by, say, any half-decent sprinter when Alexander Kristoff or Nacer Bouhanni round the final bend of a fast finish in pole position.

Quintana’s been like a sleepwalking corpse throughout the race, his usual poise and climbing prowess frozen on the mortuary slab that is his Canyon by a fourth consecutive Grand Tour and the ever-increasing ridicule of his failed Giro-Tour double.

If it was no surprise to see Quintana quickly distanced by Contador, it was certainly odd – albeit admittedly touching – to see the Spaniard look over his shoulder and do his best to revive his flagging companion.

But Contador is too experienced and clinical to let friendship and sentimentality get in the way of a good break: this was not the Quintana of Formigal 10 months ago. Contador duly jettisoned the Colombian rather than try to drag deadwood up the interminable climb. He may have uphill class, but Contador’s no lumberjack.

Of course, we all felt – deep down – that Contador’s suicide attack was the sign of a desperate man trying to revive the dying embers of a career that has nosedived in recent years (at least, certainly on the roads of France in July).

But at least he was animating the race – and going down while playing the violins on the Titanic while the team-mates of the yellow jersey manned the lifeboats.

Indeed, once liberated from the shackles of Quintana, Contador made good progress eating into the lead of the break before being joined by team-mate Michael Gogl, who dropped back from the leaders to help pace the Spaniard to within touching distance.

A day after we saw Team Sunweb put on a masterclass for Michael Matthews and Warren Barguil, it was Trek-Segafredo’s opportunity to show their class. With Jarlinson Pantano and Stage 15 winner Bauke Mollema riding in the break, Contador had two mountain lieutenants on whose shoulders he could lean.

Recovering from his nasty crash in the crosswinds on Tuesday, Pantano set a fast tempo on the long descent to the Maurienne valley before Mollema took up the baton as the break stretched its lead to more than four minutes on the Col du Telegraphe.

Once Contador recovered from yet another curious bike change, Mollema continued his selfless pacing onto the Galibier before handing the reins over to the Spaniard – who, at this point, was a successful climb away from riding back into the top five and taking a quite swashbuckling stage on the world’s biggest bike race.

When Primoz Roglic upped the tempo, Contador was able to follow with Serge Pauwels, and soon a nice lead group formed with the arrivals of Darwin Atapuma, Mathias Frank and Dani Navarro – Contador’s old friend and team-mate from those early Tour victories in 2007 and 2009.

The scene was set for Contador to end his barren run on the Tour.

But, as his old 2010 sparring partner Michael Rasmussen inferred, Contador was being powered more by his heart than the legs – and when the attacks came, he had no answer. Roglic, then Pauwels, then Roglic again – and this time definitively – opened up gaps, with Contador struggling to follow. Even Atapuma distanced the Spaniard before the steep double-digit section.

By the time the yellow jersey group reached the summit of the Galibier, they had caught Contador – with Barguil pipping the Spaniard for third place over the highest mountain of the 2017 Tour.

When Froome attacked with Barguil, Romain Bardet and Rigoberto Uran on the tight hairpin bends on the technical descent, Contador put the handbrake on. Rather than ride with the big guns, Contador dropped back to a chase group that included Fabio Aru and Dan Martin.

So, while he leapfrogged Damiano Caruso and Quintana as he re-entered the top ten again, Contador still trails the summit of a race that he hoped to win by almost eight minutes – a race which is shaping up to be the tightest in Tour history, with Froome’s gap over his rivals Bardet and Uran just 27 seconds with four stages remaining.

Still, Contador and Trek rolled the dice – and it almost came to rest on a double six. The Spaniard and his team deserve praise for the coup they tried to pull off.

While Contador did manage to pay a visit to the podium in Serre Chavalier, it was merely as the most combative rider of the day: leading to a once great rider reduced to an animated footnote and the butt of throwaway jokes from a clearly still concussed rookie Latvian.