Stages 12&13

The Tour de France rolls on, and waits for nobody.

Stage Twelve: A high-powered four-man breakaway consisting of Jonas Abrahamsen, Valentin Madouas, Anthony Turgis, and Quentin Pacher escaped after a scuffle, but because of their strength and the nervous peloton, a few sprint teams including Alpecin and Movistar kept them under two minutes in front. The catch was made with more than an hour left to race and the peloton rode together to the expected bunch sprint, won by Biniam Girmay, his third stage in this Tour de France. Second was for Wout van Aert, showing his sprint chops and improving form, and Pascal Ackermann took a surprising third. Bini sealed the Green Jersey with this victory.

Arguably more importantly, Primoz Roglic crashed hard and the world learned the next morning that the great man would leave the Tour de France. I can’t imagine, after all he has endured as a professional cyclist, what he and his team must be feeling for this to happen yet again. I don’t really have words at this point; even his rivals in the GC fight were “devastated”. I just wish crashes weren’t so common in this godforsaken sport. Poor Primoz.

Stage Thirteen: This was one of the most interesting stages of the whole Tour. You really need to watch the whole replay if you missed it. The stage commenced with relentless attacking on a slightly lumpy parcours, but with the loss of some rouleurs due to OTLing the day prior among Astana and Alpecin (two of the sprint teams expected to control the stage), the breakaway had an excellent chance to win today. And with the expected crosswinds, the GC teams were hyper-vigilant, and nervous.

A 22-rider break got up the road, but despite its insane strength (it contained powerhouses like Mathieu van der Poel – which indicated Alpecin’s lack of desire to chase a break – Oier Lazkano, Abrahamsen, and Arnaud De Lie) it did not get a huge lead as one might have expected. The key figure in the move, the man whose presence had the potential to turn the Tour de France on its head, was Adam Yates. He was sitting just under seven minutes behind his teammate Pogacar on GC and in flying climbing form, which meant the other GC teams, including Visma, were not going to allow the breakaway to ride off into the sunset. I am sure that if Yates had not been there, the break would have won by at least 10 minutes today.

I’m also sure that was UAE’s hope (or at least five, to make Yates a danger-man/headache for the other GC contenders’ teams in the Pyrenees. The logic behind this tactic is that if Yates went into yellow today or came close, UAE would have another card to play should Yates attack late in a mountain stage or slip into another dangerous breakaway. That would force Visma and Quick-Step, and potentially Jonas and Remco themselves to chase him, while Pogacar got a “free” ride in their wheels. In this scenario, if Yates’ attacks *improbably* succeeded, UAE would win the race with him, and if they didn’t, Pogacar would counterattack Remco and Jonas and gain more time).

Now, before I discuss the rest of the stage, the reason that teams and riders do not often initiate attacks like Yates did today is because when they do, it almost never succeeds, and costs precious energy.

But UAE likes to be aggressive in the mold of its talisman, Tadej, and in this specific scenario, the probability of Yates gaining time was decent. Because the breakaway was full of huge engines and uber-motivated, Yates wouldn’t have to waste all that much energy if this came off.

But Visma, INEOS, and Quick-Step were determined to control this, and despite the firepower up front, the peloton were able to keep the gap under a minute for dozens of kilometers ridden at 50 kilometers per hour on rolling terrain in windy conditions. They were also getting help from teams like Jayco, which had missed the breakaway entirely and wanted to chase it back for a sprint with Dylan Groenewegen.

At one point, Wout van Aert got on the front for Visma in a crosswind section, with his whole team in the wheel, hopped out of the saddle, did an ungodly watt-bomb, and shredded the entire peloton off of his wheel, except for his teammates, Pogacar, Remco, and a few others. That group of about a dozen riders began rolling vicious turns to try to bring back the breakaway, with Remco and Jonas even taking pulls. I think Pogi rolled through a few times, which had me scratching my head, but as the announcers explained, it is extremely important to roll through in echelons (the formation of riders created by crosswinds) in order to stay at the front in case there are more splits.

This group made up some ground to the breakaway, but INEOS was chasing furiously in the peloton and eventually Visma realized that they had probably made a mistake. This team attack, while lovely ciclismo, was a massive waste of energy. And with the Pyrenees on the docket for the weekend and Pogacar with a 1:14 lead on Jonas, the team needs to be strong enough to hurt the Slovenian so Jonas can attack him. This group was caught by the peloton and then it was back to trying to reel in the break.

The duel lasted over two hours, but eventually, even with a group of four including Magnus Cort getting up the road from the breakaway, the leaders were swept away by the rampaging peloton, which at 60k remaining shredded to bits once again in an exposed section of road. Most of the important riders were represented, with the GC contenders themselves taking pulls on the front of the yellow group, but Adam Yates, after dictating the pace of the stage up to that point, was gapped.

Eventually things slowed down enough for Yates’ group to come back, but without as many domestiques as desired to control (or, if teams had them, they were cooked at that point) there were bound to be more attacks. Richard Carapaz and Tobias Johannessen attacked about 25k from the finish and got a lead as big as 35 seconds, but were going nowhere. Groups were coalescing in the peloton and domestiques regenerating, and even with some hills in the finale, it looked like a bunch sprint was imminent.

After a flurry of attacks on the hills that were eventually chased back, what remained of the peloton flew into the final kilometer with the sprinters queuing up, joined by the yellow jersey in the first 10 wheels. But right before that flamme rouge, Pogacar was washed away in a corner. A late crash of a few riders held up Arnaud De Lie, and Christophe Laporte, leading out Wout, dropped his sprinter off too early. Wout soft-pedaled for a few seconds before getting attacked by Jasper Philipsen, who won the stage by half a wheel over his compatriot. Ackermann got third again. Girmay took fourth to help defend green, which is essentially locked at this point. Pogacar sprinted, not without ris,, to ninth place for a few UCI points. I think he could’ve podiumed the sprint, or at least top five, with better positioning, but better positioning is dangerous.

It was a bit of an anti-climactic end to an amazing race, which was ridden at over 30 miles per hou (48.8 kph average). But kudos to Jasper for getting another win after the tough July he’s had.

Tomorrow the race kicks off again in the Pyrenees, with the Tourmalet and a savage finishing climb (Pla d’Adet). I’m worried for my man, but I still believe.

Ciao.

Jamie