In saying that, the Games in Glasgow, for which Renshaw has been selected for the men’s road race on August 3 – one week after the Tour finishes – are not in the forefront of his mind. Far from it, in fact.

As with any rider in France, all that Renshaw can focus on right now, as the Tour enters its third of three weeks, is what awaits him in the days ahead – including three brutal stages in the Pyrenees.

“I haven’t even thought about the Commonwealth Games yet,” Renshaw said.

While Renshaw already has four top-10 stage placings, two further opportunities to win a stage await him.

They are Friday’s 208.5-kilometre 19th stage from Maubourguet Pays du Val d’Adour to Bergerac and Sunday’s 137.5km 21st and final stage from Evry to the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Of the two, Renshaw believes he is best suited to Sunday’s stage into Paris. It is also certainly the one that he holds closest to his heart, labelling it as “the sprinters’ world championship”.

Renshaw still rates his second place after leading out team-mate Mark Cavendish to victory in the same stage in 2009 as a career highlight, so imagine how a win now would rank for him.

“It’s the best corner in the whole race, the last one,” Renshaw said of the last left and right chicane 400m from the Champs Elysees after which the winning sprint often begins. “It’s awesome. The Champs Elysees is so famous ... a great place.”

Renshaw, whose best finishes so far on this Tour since Cavendish crashed out on day one are a third on stage three, fourth on stage six, fifth on stage 15 and seventh on stage four, is buoyed by his relative strength and good health after two weeks of the Tour.

“I can’t remember the last grand tour where I felt this good,” he said, adding that much of that is due to a reduction in his usual workload as Cavendish’s lead-out rider for the sprints.

It has helped Renshaw that since Cavendish left, his team have won two stages. Italy’s Matteo Trentin won stage seven and Germany’s Tony Martin stage nine.

But Renshaw says the pressure is still on the team to fill the void of Cavendish’s traditional haul of Tour stage wins that now tally 25 for his career.

“Every day we are trying to chase wins. Without ‘Cav’, we are a little bit down on wins,” Renshaw said.

While Cavendish’s exit opened the door to Renshaw racing for himself, he says that the adaptation from being the lead-out rider who goes with 300m out to the final sprinter is hard.

He says it also requires a different form of preparation going into a grand tour.

“It’s really hard to adjust,” Renshaw said.

“I didn’t train for that role ... I would have loved to have had last year’s training with this year ... [with] a lot more short, intense efforts in sprint training, rather than longer progressive efforts I have done this year.”

But with the results of the third week often being determined on who is freshest and healthiest, rather than fastest, Renshaw is confident he can still snag that elusive win.