Thomas’ trip to the podium means a British rider has now pulled on the yellow jersey in five of the past six editions of the Tour de France.

The 31-year-old’s maillot jaune adds another line to a glittering CV which includes two Olympic gold medals on the track and road stage race victories at Paris-Nice, the Volta ao Algarve and the Tour of the Alps.

Tour de France starts: 8*
Best Tour de France result: 15th (2015, 2016)
Number of yellow jerseys: 4*

Chris Froome

Chris Froome holds the British record for the most yellow jerseys – having overtaken Sir Bradley Wiggins’ total of 14 when he assumed the race lead after the third stage in 2015 – and he is now just one short of 60 days in the yellow jersey.

Froome moved into the top five overall on his way to winning the 2016 Tour de France, while the yellow jersey he pulled on after La Plance des Belles Filles – the first mountain stage of the 2017 race – was his 45th.

By the end of the race, having worn the jersey for all but two days from then until Paris, he had taken his total to 59 – fourth in the all-time list.

While in the yellow jersey, Froome has won some notable stages too – including his Mont Ventoux victory in 2013 and then his stunning win on La Pierre-Saint-Martin in 2015, when he obliterated his rivals on the first real mountain stage of that year’s race.

Aged just 32, and undoubtedly one of the finest Grand Tour riders of the current generation, the Team Sky man will hope to have put the British record on the shelf by the time his Tour career ends.

Tour de France starts: 7*
Best Tour de France result: Winner (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), seven stage wins (2012, 2013, 2015, 2016), King of the Mountains winner (2015)
Number of yellow jerseys: 59*

Sir Bradley Wiggins

Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first Brit ever to win the Tour de France in 2012, on what turned out to be his final appearance at Le Tour.

Wiggins pulled on the yellow jersey on La Planche des Belles Filles and wore it all the way to Paris, where his final act was to lead out Mark Cavendish to stage victory before taking top step on the final podium.

Wiggins was in yellow during his two Tour de France stage wins, winning the time trial in Besancon and then again in Chartres – where the image of him punching the air as he crossed the finish line, Tour victory all but sealed, became one of the defining moments of a stunning summer of British sport.

Having left Team Sky in April 2015, Wiggins – who also led the Giro and Vuelta – is one of five riders to have finished his Tour de France career with overall victory – Fausto Coppi was the last man to do so before him, some 60 years earlier.

Tour de France starts: 6
Best Tour de France result: Winner (2012), two stage wins (2012)
Number of yellow jerseys: 14

Chris Boardman

Chris Boardman’s ability against the clock, which saw him crowned world time trial champion in 1994, also saw the Merseysider lead the Tour de France in 1994, 1997 and 1998.

Victories in the opening time trials in each earned him six yellow jerseys in total, with his 1994 win having been the fastest ever Tour de France time trial at the time – a record only broken in 2015 by Rohan Dennis.

In 1998, Boardman won the prologue in Dublin but later crashed out of the race while in the yellow jersey – crashes having been a recurrent theme in his Tour de France career.

That, and difficulties first with low hormone levels – making recovery difficulty between stages – and then osteopenia meant optimistic predictions of Boardman becoming Britain’s first Tour winner proved wide of the mark.

Nevertheless, Boardman is widely revered by British cycling fans thanks to his exploits at a time when high-profile British riders were few and far between.

Tour de France starts: 6
Best Tour de France result: 39^th (1996), three stage wins (1994, 1997, 1998)
Number of yellow jerseys: 6

Sean Yates

In a race which had already seen Boardman pull on the yellow jersey for the first time with his record-breaking time trial, another Brit also earned his own moment in the sun later in the race.

Boardman won the prologue in Lille, but had ceded the yellow jersey when the race crossed the channel for two stages from Dover to Brighton and then in Portsmouth.

Upon its return to France the following day, however, Sean Yates – better known for his work as a domestique – assumed the race lead after joining a late break with 25km to go.

Gianluca Bortolami won the stage, but Yates finished two seconds back – enough to hold a one-second lead over the Italian overall.

One of Britain’s true hard men of the peloton only wore the jersey for a single day but the race was the only one to see two different Brits wear yellow until Cavendish and Froome did so in 2016.

Tour de France starts: 12
Best Tour de France result: 45^th (1989), one stage win (1988)
Number of yellow jerseys: 1

Tom Simpson

The first British man to be crowned world road race champion was also the first British man to pull on the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

At the 1962 race, on his way to a career-best sixth overall, Simpson took the race lead from Willy Schroeders in the Pyrenees at Saint-Gaudens.

An 18.5km mountain time trial the following day proved to be Simpson’s only day as race leader, however, with Jef Planckaert’s second place on the day enough to overhaul the Brit.

Ultimately, Simpson – riding for the VC XII team – finished 17.09 behind Jacques Anquetil overall, but the successes of 1962 were never to be repeated.

He only finished the Tour de France once more, coming 14^th in 1964, before his untimely death on Mont Ventoux in 1967.

Tour de France starts: 7
Best Tour de France result: 6th (1962)
Number of yellow jerseys: 1

*As of July 23, 2017