What was supposed to be one final chance for the many teams still chasing stage success at this Tour de France today in the Alps instead ended up being yet another victory for Tadej Pogačar.
Though the yellow jersey did keep to his word with regard to not being bothered about chasing the win, declining to deploy his UAE Team Emirates riders at the front of the peloton, instead Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal-Quick Step led the chase. Their pace was not enough to achieve Evenepoel’s aim of putting Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) under pressure, but it did ensure that the breakaway was once again caught by the group of favourites — and thus a fifth triumph for Pogačar, this time almost by accident.
This continues what has been a rough Tour de France for teams hunting success from the breakaway, especially in the mountains. Now, unless someone can mount a big surprise in tomorrow’s final time trial and prevent one of the top GC men from winning, a total of ten teams will leave this Tour de France winless.
Many of those ten teams were on a mission to win the stage today. Above all, Movistar engineered a very promising situation to rescue their race at the last hurdle. Their leader Enric Mas might have had a tough race up until now, falling out of GC contention early and failing to get close to a stage win, but he looked something like his best today. Having gotten into the day’s break he went clear with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) on the final climb, and the two succeeded in putting daylight between themselves and the rest of the breakaway riders.
Image: ASO/Charly Lopez
The pair engaged in an entertaining battle, regularly attacking each other but proving to be evenly matched, with neither managing to go clear. Perhaps they’d have been better off working together, given how they were up against the peloton chasing them as much as they were each other, but in reality they were always unlikely to survive once Soudal-Quick Step set about pacing the peloton. Mas was caught first, and ended up slipping down to finish the stage in fifth. With Oier Lazkano's bid for the King of the Mountains also unravelling in recent days, Movistar’s Tour is set to end in disappointment.
They weren’t the only winless team to get a man in the day’s break. Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Bruno Armirail did a good job of being one of the three riders (along with Mas and Visma-Lease a Bike’s Wilco Kelderman) to go clear initially. There was a scramble among many other teams to join them, and eventually representatives from the similarly winless Groupama-FDJ (Kevin Geniets), Uno-X (Tobias Halland Johannessen) and Lidl-Trek (Jasper Stuyven) managed to bridge up to them.
The problem for all was that, with the exception of Johannessen, none of these riders are recognised as climbers; and so, even if the break had been allowed to succeed, it would have taken virtually a miracle for them to get the better of pure climbers like Carapaz and Mas. It was a resilient effort from all of them (especially Stuyven, who wowed in terrain ill-suited to his strengths), but in all likelihood would only result in a high stage placing rather than the longed-for stage win — and ultimately, none of their efforts were even rewarded with a top ten, Johannessen the highest finisher in eleventh.
Image: ASO/Charly Lopez
Stuyven’s Lidl-Trek at least have the consolation of a high GC placing for Giulio Ciccone, who will hope to defend his tenth place tomorrow in Nice, and other winless teams appeared to prioritise the overall classification over targeting the stage win. Israel-PremierTech’s Derek Gee and Bahrain-Victorious’ Santiago Buitrago were lively early in the day, when a lack of control in the peloton saw them among several riders in and around the GC top ten trying to get up the road. After things settled down, they went back into defensive mode, not taking risks and riding tempo on the final climb.
Both, however, endured tough days, with Gee losing enough time to Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) to fall from eighth to ninth, while Buitrago conceded more time to the man currently denying him a place in the top ten, Giulio Ciccone. Gee’s ninth-place should at least be secure, but Buitrago now faces a tough time trying to capture the 22 seconds he needs to overthrow Ciccone from tenth place, and at least give Bahrain-Victorious a top ten to celebrate at their post-Tour party.
Carlos Rodríguez also slipped down on GC, from sixth to seventh, in another blow for Ineos Grenadiers. Not only were they absent from the day’s break, missing their last chance for a stage win, Rodríguez was also on a bad day, being dropped as early as the first climb. He rejoined the peloton after things settled down, but was dropped again on the final climb, and now faces a fight with Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) to gain the one second he now trails the Brit by. Given the expectations going into the Tour, fighting for sixth place on GC, having missed out on a stage win altogether, is far from what they hoped they would be chasing come the end of the Tour..
But worse still has been Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Tour. They’ve never managed to bounce back from Primož Roglič’s abandonment, and, despite the efforts of Jai Hindley to win from the break, never came close to rescuing their Tour with either a stage win or a GC top ten. Thas same fate has befallen the tenth of the winless teams, Cofidis, but given all the investment that went into the Tour from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, they must surely be the most disappointed of all the teams at this Tour.
Cover image: Zac Williams/SWpix
