This article appeared in the July 23, 2018 edition of the Monitor Daily.

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Monitor Daily Intro for July 23, 2018

Peter Ford
International News editor

Should you always obey the rules, as a good team player? Or are you justified sometimes in breaking them to set new ones?

That’s the question that must be going round Geraint Thomas’s head as he enters the final, mountainous week of the Tour de France cycle race. This mythic event has always been about teamwork and self-sacrifice. But Mr. Thomas is clearly tempted to go it alone.

His job in the Sky team is to support team leader Chris Froome in his bid to win a record-equaling fifth Tour – to sacrifice himself. But he is riding more strongly than his boss, and he is currently leading both Mr. Froome and everyone else in the race.

Will he go all out to win if he can? Will Froome fight back? That would confront the six other riders on the team with a tough choice: which one to help in a race that is very much an eight-man event.

In 1986, the American rider Greg LeMond and French hero Bernard Hinault split their team down the middle by turning on each other; in the end, that year Mr. LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France.

Thomas insists to the press that he will defer to Froome. But he’s riding as if he wants the glory himself, and he would deserve it if he won. Will he let a sense of duty hold him back?

Now to our five stories for today.


This article appeared in the July 23, 2018 edition of the Monitor Daily.

Read 07/23 edition
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