Geraint Thomas bounced back from a second crash in the Tour de France to keep his hopes of a successful title defence intact, after a frenetic finale to stage eight.

As Thomas De Gendt of Belgium soloed to a typical breakaway win, Thomas followed with two of his teammates, as they chased Michael Woods down the day’s penultimate descent. It took a furious pursuit from Thomas, aided by his teammate Wout Poels, to get the 2018 champion back among the group of main contenders for overall victory.

Tour de France: De Gendt wins stage eight, Alaphilippe back in yellow – live! Read more

“We were behind Woods and his team,” Thomas said. “It was just unfortunate that he crashed in front of us and took us out but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I was straight back up and into the group.”

But with attacks ahead it took some time for Thomas to catch up. “It was hard for sure. It was OK getting back to the group but riders were getting dropped in front of me over the top [of the climb], so I had to close that gap. It was a big effort. But that’s an encouraging sign that I had the legs to do it.”

It was an effort that supported his principal Dave Brailsford’s claim that Thomas is in the form of his life. Speaking at the start in Mâcon, Brailsford said the defending champion is “as good as if not better than he’s ever been”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Defending champion Geraint Thomas suffered his second crash of this year’s Tour de France. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Brailsford admitted he and his team had been “pretty excited” to see Thomas attacking at the first summit finish last Thursday in the Vosges. “It was always going to be about that final ramp,” Brailsford said. “We knew that. When Geraint went [on the attack] it was pretty exciting to see how strong he was, to be honest.”

Thomas, whose buildup to his title defence was hampered by a lack of racing and a bad crash in June, has raced a lot less than many of his rivals, something Brailsford accepted could be an advantage. “He’s not carrying big latent fatigue, theoretically, so he should be able to carry that into the guts of the race,” Brailsford said. “When it gets really hard later on, as long as he’s fuelling well and recovering well, he should be competitive.”

But the warning signs are there for Ineos. Thomas has now crashed twice, which will be jangling nerves inside his team management group, while Julian Alaphilippe and Thibaut Pinot of France both exploded the race on the Côte de la Jaillière, with Alaphilippe retaking the yellow jersey he lost on Thursday’s stage to La Planche des Belles Filles.

If Thomas has reasserted his status both within his team and the peloton as a whole, then his Colombian teammate Egan Bernal appears to have become a little subdued. Brailsford, however, insisted that the 22-year-old was not wilting in the Tour’s hothouse.

Tour de France diary: Spin from Dave Brailsford, a spill for Geraint Thomas| Jeremy Whittle Read more

He said: “No — not at all,” he said before acknowledging that the great expectations on the Colombian’s shoulders may have become something of a burden. “If you had a choice of Geraint carrying that or Egan, then Geraint’s got more experience and he’s been there, seen it and done it.“There still is a lot of optimism [about Egan]. We’ve got two athletes at different ends of their life cycles, and there’s definitely a difference. If you look at how well they ride a bike, they’re both extremely talented, but it’s easy to get dragged into managing people at their talent level rather than their age.

“You see them as leaders or co-leaders at this level and coach them in that way rather than remembering, ‘Hang on, he’s only 22.’

“You get glimpses of brilliance and then glimpses of the 22-year-old. I’m just mindful that he’s 22, we have to keep an eye on him and support him, while Geraint is a 33-year-old, who’s won this race before, is worldly-wise and has a lot of poise in this circus and shrugs off people going on about five seconds.”

Bernal is riding his second Tour and endured what Brailsford called a “baptism of fire” last July when French ire towards Chris Froome, in the aftermath of his abandoned Salbutamol investigation, was at its peak. “Egan, with the whole team, had a hell of a tough time, that was aggressive and frightening,” Brailsford said. “The difference in the reception this year is night and day.” But he denied that the friendlier atmosphere was because Froome had been forced out through injury.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “I ride my bike every day in Ineos kit up the climbs and French people at the roadside are asking, ‘How’s Chris?’ so that’s pretty telling, I think. It’s a very different and positive environment.”