After the GC was reshuffled in yesterday’s ITT, we are back in sprinter friendly territory, with a flat stage in the southern part of Centre-Val de Loire region. From Tours the largest city in the region to Châteauroux the capital city of the department of Indre.
Although several rides tried, it was impossible to establish a breakaway before the intermediate sprint. The top sprinters fought for the points and the sprint was won by Caleb Ewan, in front of Mads Pedersen and Sonny Colbrelli.
Astana’s Jonas Gregaard attempted to form a break after the sprint, but unfortunately ended up in an impossible solo adventure.
It came to a mass sprint in Châteauroux, won by Sam Bennett in front of Dylan Groenewegen and Arnaud Démare. Mads Pedersen started a long sprint too early and ended up with a disappointing 10th. This was Sam Bennett’s 6th season victory, the fourth at World Tour level, 2nd of this tour.
It is the last stage of the first week, with its 241 km from Vierzon to Le Creusot, the longest stage of the tour. An undulated profile, that might inspire the first breakaway victory of the tour. If not a breakaway, we expect a mix of race favorites and punchers in a small group finish.
With a profile that might go to a breakaway, we get Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier away in a group with Romain Hardy from Arkéa – Samsic, Mauro Schmid from Qhubeka, Cyril Barthe from B&B Hotels and Jan Bakelants from Intermarché Wanty Gobert. Mauro Schmid takes the sprint and the first KoM. Sadly, it does not last, the break is over before the 2nd KoM with almost 40 km left.
Over the last 30 km, the peloton is reduced to 27 riders. Nairo Quintana attacks over the final hilltop, Giulio Ciccone attempts to close the gap. Vincenzo Nibali has a very hard day and sits in a group with Edward Theuns about 3 minutes behind, his GC is more or less over.
Nairo Quintana wins the stage. Giulio Ciccone 2nd at 25”.
Sam Bennett wins the peloton sprint in front of Wout Van Aert and Mads Pedersen. This group, with most of the race favourites, at 43”.
After a week of relatively flat racing, the Tour de France heads into the Jura and Alpine mountain ranges for the first time this year, with five categorized climbs. Culminating with the first category ascent of the Col de la Colombière, before the downhill to the finish at Le Grand-Bornand.
Logically there is a lot of attacking on the early Forêt d'Échallon climb, Julian Alaphilippe the first over the top. Pierre Latour, Warren Barguil and Sander Armée joined up at the descent. also, a 9 rider pursuit was formed in front of the pack, with Óscar Rodriguez, Anthony Perez and Stefan De Bod.
Most of those riders was caught over the following climbs Côte de Copponex and Côte de Menthonnex-en-Bornes by a fast peloton. Óscar Rodriguez won both climbs. Now Rodriguez and Barguil alone in front, with Mauro Schmid hanging some seconds behind. The pack at 1’33”.
The breakaway was caught and Alaphilippe attacks to claim cat.2 Côte de Mont-Saxonnex. But the first really serious GC attack comes at the 8.3 km cat.1 Col de Romme. Simon Yates, Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, and Mikel Landa.
Over the top of Côte de Mont-Saxonnex the leading trio drop Mikel Landa. Enric Mas, Ben O'Connor and Primož Roglic at 1’32, the peloton 18 riders with Richard Carapaz, Egan Bernal and Giulio Ciccone at 2’29. 25 km at still the final climb to Col de la Colombière left.
Enric Mas, Ben O'Connor and Primož Roglic may have used to much energy too early. They are all passed by Carapaz, Bernal and Ciccone on the last climb. With another great day, Tadej Pogacar wins the stage, in front of Simon Yates and Jonas Vingegaard. This was Tadej Pogacar’s 3rd stage win of the tour, he now leads the GC with 1’13 to Simon Yates and 1’23 to Jonas Vingegaard. With 18 points today Pogacar also takes back the KoM from Miguel Ángel López. Giulio Ciccone finish 6th at 2'39, he is now 7th in GC at 4’06”
The stage from Cluses, located in the Arve river valley to Tignes ski resort is just 145 km, with 5 categorized climbs, its only up and down all day and the final more than 20 km up to Tignes is expected to be very important in the GC battle.
31 riders reach the bottom of the opening climb to Côte de Domancy, most notably Thibaut Pinot, Pello Bilbao, Pierre Latour, Óscar Rodriguez, Alexey Lutsenko, Jakob Fuglsang and Jan Hirt. Alexey Lutsenko takes the first KoM.
Thibaut Pinot wins on the following mountain Col des Saisies. It this point we got 11 riders within a minute of the stage leaders. Thibaut Pinot, Pierre Latour, Óscar Rodriguez, Jan Hirt, Harold Tejada, Rafael Valls and Anthony Perez in the first group. Cesare Benedetti and a little further back Alexey Lutsenko, Jakob Fuglsang and Julien El Fares in pursuit.
The Astana duo of Óscar Rodriguez and Harold Tejada, drop everyone else at Hors catégorie Col du Pré, the gap to the leader jersey reaches its max at 5’28”. Rodriguez wins at Col du Pré and cat.2 climb Cormet de Roselend
Thibaut Pinot joins the leading trio at the long downhill. Richard Carapaz, Primož Roglic, Jonas Vingegaard and Mikel Landa attacks from the bottom. Remco Evenepoel not long after. With 10 km left its Pinot and Rodriguez in front. Vingegaard, Evenepoel, Bardet and Tejada at 35”, O’connor at 1’28, 15 riders with Pogacar, Carapaz, S. Yates and Landa at 1’44. Although both Giulio Ciccone and Vincenzo Nibali has great legs today, they were distanced by the many accelerations and are slowly grinding back, currently at 3’08.
Tadej Pogacar does it again. Just passes Remco Evenepoel before the KoM at Montée de Tignes and takes another stage with 12” to Evenepoel and 47” to Vingegaard. His 4th stage victory of this tour and 13th season win. With 33 KoM points today Óscar Rodriguez takes the polka dot jersey. With the help of Vincenzo Nibali’s surprisingly strong legs, Giulio Ciccone was able to grind slowly back, passing a lot of exhausted riders over the last 10 km. Ciccone finished 9th at 1’24, Nibali 16th at 2’31. Tadej Pogacar now leads the GC with 2’16 to Jonas Vingegaard and 3’15 to Richard Carapaz. Giulio Ciccone 7th at 5’40”.
The stage from Albertville to Valence, takes us away from the Alps, heading for a sprinter friendly finish in the Rhône Valley. The few climbs on the route may help a breakaway, but today’s winner is expected to be found after a mass sprint.
It took a while to establish a break today, the pack was fast as some sprinter teams was looking for the points from the intermediate sprint. Never the less BORA’s Michael Schwarzmann and Wanty Gobert’s Loïc Vliegen made it to the sprint first. They were later joined by Israel’s Alessandro De Marchi, forming the break of the day. Michael Schwarzmann took most of the KoM points, but he is not part of the overall competition, led by Óscar Rodriguez.
Trek-Segafredo take part in the pursuit, expecting a good result from Mads Pedersen.
The stage was won by Michael Matthews in front of Arnaud Démare and Nacer Bouhanni, Mads Pedersen 5th a somewhat disappointing result. This was Matthews’ 2nd win of the season, the first at World Tour level.
The 195 km stage from Sorgues to Malaucène, is all about climbing. First two uncategorized climbs over Côte de Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Côte de Gordes, then cat.1 Col de la Liguière. The riders will then descend into Sault before beginning the anticipated doubled ascent of Mont Ventoux before the dangerous 23 km descent to the finish line.
The early breakaway with KoM leader Óscar Rodriguez and more than 30 other riders was reeled in. Consequently Rodriguez missed today’s break, 34 riders with several notable climbers, including Thibaut Pinot, Pello Bilbao, Guillaume Martin, Michael Woods, Pierre Latour and Alexey Lutsenko.
Pello Bilbao takes the KoM at Col de la Liguière. At this point the peloton is at 5’20”
Alexey Lutsenko first at the early passing of Mont Ventoux, now the 34 breakaway riders are spread out over the mountain. The favorite group reduced to 36 riders at 3’16.
Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier crashed, but got back on the bike. The breakaway was caught at the 2nd ascent of Mont Ventoux. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard attacked, Vingegaard took the KoM.
They were caught by the next group at the descent. Nine riders sprinted for the stage. Primož Roglic won in Malaucène, Richard Carapaz 2nd and Jonas Vingegaard took the last podium. Vincenzo Nibali and Giulio Ciccone 19th and 20th both at 1’50”. This was Primož Roglic’s 6th season victory, all at the World Tour. Tadej Pogacar leads the race with 2’12 to Jonas Vingegaard and 3’09 to Richard Carapaz. Giulio Ciccone fell to 8th in GC at 7'30, passed by Ben O'Connor and Primož Roglic.
Very solid so far, too bad Pedersen couldn't take a stage to go with the yellow jersey in week 1.
Thanks for reply.
Yes, Ciccone performs above expectations, but Pedersen so far has failed to deliver what could be expected. Never the less he did hold a few days in yellow from stage two.
Edited by Tamijo on 27-05-2024 09:55
Stage 11 returns to less testing terrain with a 153.0 km stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Nîmes. This should be a relatively quiet day in the Tour, either with a mass sprint finish or a breakaway. But you never know, crosswinds or crashes could change that completely.
The morning breaklaway was Anthony Perez, Lluís Mas and Ben Zwiehoff. Zwiehoff took most of the KoM points.
Lotto Soudal took responsibility in the peloton and reeled in the breakaway before the last climb.
Dylan Groenewegen took the stage win in from of Matteo Trentin and Caleb Ewan. Another somewhat disappointing 5th from Mads Pedersen. This was Dylan Groenewegen first victory of the season. The GC remains unchanged.
Editorial: Sadly, I had another error – stage 13 auto simulated, right after we finished stage 12.
The race heads out of Carcassonne for a 173 kilometre journey south to the small town of Quillan. On paper this looks like a day for the breakaway with six categorised climbs peppering the route all the way towards the 17 kilometre descent from the top of the last ascent into the finishing town. The stage might be decided by the final climb of the stage, the Col de Saint-Louis with 4.7 km at an average gradient of 7.4 per cent, either by someone from a breakaway or a climber/puncher.
The original morning breakaway was 8 riders, all more than 1h20’ behind in the general classification. Direct Energie’s Anthony Turgis took 12 KoM points, but it was his first.
Mads Pedersen proclaimed great legs and we decided to work for a stage victory, helping to keep the breakaway under control. The breakaway was caught quite early, but we got a new more dangerous attack with about 50 km left. Alexey Lutsenko, Anthony Perez, Pierre Latour and Thibaut Pinot.
This group was also reeled in and a last attempt from Davide Formolo over the last KoM was also neutralised. Our train today was perfect, Giulio Ciccone opened the sprint for Mads Pedersen.
Mads Pedersen won the stage in front of Primož Roglic and teammate Giulio Ciccone. It was Pedersen’s first victory in the Tour, 8th seasonal win. There was no change in GC top 10.
Stage 15 from Ceret to Andorre-La-Vieille could protentially be one of the hardest in this year’s race. There are four categorised climbs along the 179.3 kilometre route, three of them are first category ascents, the riders will reach the highest point in this year’s race, topping out at 2,408 m over Port d'Envalira.
During the first 20 km of the race, several strong top riders attacked the peloton. Remco Evenepoel, David Gaudu, Rigoberto Urán the most prominent. But these attacks was all reeled in before the intermediate sprint. After that we got a more usual breakaway with 2nd tier riders. Chris Froome, Gregor Mühlberger, Nans Peters, Alexey Lutsenko, Pierre Latour and Pello Bilbao.
The breakaway was caught. Jonas Vingegaard attacked near the top of the penultimate climb Port d'Envalira. Mikel Landa attempted to follow.
UAE Team Emirates upped the pace in the pack and Vingegaard was caught on Col de Beixalis. Tadej Pogacar accelerated and opened a gap of about 16” over the top. We have both Vincenzo Nibali and Giulio Ciccone in the favourite group right behind him.
Tadej Pogacar was caught and it came to a sprint between the 11 riders in the favourite group. The stage was won by Primož Roglic in front of Vincenzo Nibali and Tadej Pogacar. This was Roglic's 2nd victory in this tour, his 7th seasonal win all at World Tour level. With some top GC riders losing time, Primož Roglic moved up from 7th to 4th otherwise the GC top 10 is unchanged.
Stage 16 from Pas de la Case to Saint-Gaudens is a semi mountain stage, before the two summit finish mountain stages, coming up the following two days. Might be a stage for the breakaway, but it is also possible that we will see a sprint from a reduced peloton, in any case, unlikely that we will get a major impact on the GC.
A very strong breakaway took off, including 14th in GC Nairo Quintana and 18th in GC Rigoberto Urán. Mattias Skjelmose joined this group but was dropped quite early. Chris Froome took 14 KoM points from the breakaway, moving up to 5th in the competition.
The last three riders from the breakaway were Nairo Quintana, Chris Froome and Dylan Teuns, they got a minute to the favourite group with 18 km left.
It came to a reduced sprint from a group of 31 riders. Including the trio from the breakaway and all riders from GC top 10. Primož Roglic took a back to back stage victory, his 3rd stage win of the tour and 8th seasonal victory. Miguel Ángel López took the hardest beating, with a loss of 3'55 he fell from 13th to 16th in GC.
