Here we are with another mountain stage in the Pyrenees, which is finally the last one in the zone. From now, a flat stage, a hilly stage in Mende, the third Alps stages, the TT and already in Paris.
Today we won’t see a mountain finish like we did in the last two days, with Taaramae and Spilak sharing the wins and finishing second in the other stage, proving that they are the best climbers in the race. The Slovenian has now a lead of almost one minute to Phinney. The American hasn’t show his first week’s level since he took the Yellow Jersey, and at this rate, his podium place will be in danger soon.
Despite having the last climb 30 km away from the finish line in Bagneres-de-Bigorre, it’s still a mountain-filled stage, with Portet d’Aspet, Mente, Peyresourde, Val Louron and Horquette d’Ancizan
Three riders have tried to escape from the bunch, with one of them being Keinath, who is 16th in GC. The others two are Pichon and Lowe. In a second group, Tenorio joined a breakaway for the first time in the race, but surprisingly, Hugo Boss decided that they didn’t like the current breakaway, and started to relay with 5 riders! In order to catch the first groups
After a few kms of hard chase, Hugo Boss caught the remaining riders of the breakaway, in a move that doesn’t make a lot of sense, without having a GC rider, and Carapaz could have joined them, as the gap was under the minute when they started to pull
Well, at least Slagter attacked in the moment that they caught the breakaway... But no one else has joined him in the moment of starting the first climb of the day; Portet d’Aspet
In the ascent of this climb, we’re seeing one of the most lol-ish moment of the race so far. To put us in context, some riders attacked at the base of the climb, like Vanendert, Grmay, Koch, Borges and Lutsenko. Firstly, Heymes, working for Keinath, was trying to avoid these riders from escaping, with Keinath weirdly not going in the attacks. Heymes wasn’t able to reeled them and slow down his rhythm, but after a corner, somehow, only other 4 riders were following him, after a couple of Tinkoff riders suddenly stopped. And between those riders, obviously Keinath, also Tenorio and Figueiredo, but the most important, the race leader Spilak.
And no one seems to react in the bunch...
Despite being in yesterday’s breakaway, it looks like Grmay have enough energies to fight for KoM points, thus taking the 10 points out of this climb ahead of Koch and Slagter. 30 seconds behind Lutsenko, Borges and Vanendert are coming
Col de Portet d’Aspet - Cat.2
Grmay 10
Koch 8
Slagter 6
Lutsenko 4
Borges 2
This is kinda unbelievable, as Keinath has attaked Spilak’s group, almost joining Lutsenko’s group at the top of the climb, while in Spilak’s group, the speed in slopes of 7% is 8 km/h!! And in the bunch they aren’t going any faster, with the current gap being 1’30 despite the short distance
Finally, in the descent they would reagrupe, ending this weird situation, leaving 6 riders in front - and Vanendert in the middle - ready to start the second climb of the day with a 4-minute gap
Keinath Grmay Lutsenko Slagter Koch Borges
Do you remember that until now, no breakaway has been succesfull in the whole race? Well, today it’s the day that the “curse” will be broken, as nobody seems to care about the stage in the bunch, as the gap when the race leader reaches the summit of Col du Mente is 14 minutes!
In the front, Keinath was the first to reach the top of this climb, in a very exciting KoM sprint between Grmay, Koch, Slagter and the German
Col du Mente - Cat.1
Keinath 16
Grmay 12
Koch 10
Slagter 8
Lutsenko 6
Borges 4
Vanendert 2
Keinath is the rider best placed in the breakaway, currently in 16th, 25’45 behind Spilak. With the current gap to the bunch, he would rise to the 6th, just ahead of Guldhammer. Despite this, none of the teams with riders in the low-top10 has shown any interest of reducing this gap to avoid having an unexpected guest in their fight for those places, and it’s Festina, the team that is working now to avoid being surprised a-la-Pereiro in 2006. The breakaway are starting now the third climb of the day, Col de Peyresourde
This time is Grmay adding 16 points to his tally, dangerously approaching to Lutsenko, who despite being in the breakaway, is struggling a lot to score points today. Both him and Borges were already 3 minutes behind the leading four at the top of this climb, losing their chances of a stage win, and the opportunity to score a lot of KoM points
Col du Peyresourde - Cat. 1
Grmay 16
Keinath 12
Koch 10
Slagter 8
Borges 6
Lutsenko 4
Vanendert 2
The breakaway arrived to the intermediate sprint even before the bunch did the same with Peyresourde’s top, which gives you an impression of the current gap
Intermediate Sprint - Loudenville
Slagter 6
Grmay 4
Koch 2
And yes, this is the gap in the top of Peyresourde, 25 MINUTES! This puts Keinath in the provisional second place in GC, less than a minute behind Spilak, while Grmay would rise to seventh, just behind Taaramae, and Slagter would be in the top10. We’ll see if Festina reacts anytime soon, or Keinath can become the new race leader
At the top of Val Louron, only Slagter was able to stay on Keinath’s wheel, with Grmay being in striking distance to rejoin in the downhill. Koch is almost 2 minutes behind the leading duo, and the likelihood of him returning to the group is almost zero.
The German is absolutely flying now, and who would doubt this, seeing that he has the chance to get the lead in the Tour de France, or at worst, secure himself a top10 place at the end of the race. Meanwhile, it’s Wiesenhof the team that is now trying to reduce the gap to the breakaway, having recovered a minute since Peyresourde’s top
Col du Val Louron - Cat. 1
Keinath 16
Slagter 12
Grmay 10
Koch 8
Borges 6
Lutsenko 4
Vanendert 2
To everyone’s surprise, once Wiesenhof runs out of domestiques to keep up with the chase, and despite being only 25 riders in Spilak’s group - although all the top20 in GC - the rider that starts to set the pace is Pinot. Very strange strategy by Haute Route, having Grmay in the breakaway and likely recovering more than 15 minutes in GC today. The rhythm in this climb was really high, but this didn’t avoid the gap in the top of Peyresourde from being again 25 minutes
Final climb of the day for Keinath and Slagter. After climbing Horquette d’Ancizan, they’ll have 30 kms of downhill to Bagneres-de-Bigorre, a terrain where if the favourites have domestiques with them, they could lose a lot of time
There 22 riders in Spilak’s group, in the moment that this group is 5 km away from starting the final climb of the day. And this group, only misses two riders of the top20 - three with Keinath.
And Keinath drops Slagter with 1,5 km left in the climb to go for the stage win! It might not be the best move GC-wise, but if the German thinks he is much stronger he’s doing the right thing. Meanwhile, is Taaramae who, once he started Horquette d’Ancizan, is setting the pace in the leader’s group
Horquette d’Ancizan - Cat. 1
Keinath 16
Slagter 12
Grmay 10
Koch 8
Borges 6
Lutsenko 4
Vanendert 2
Formolo cracks after only a couple of kms of Taaramae’s pace, together with the remaining domestiques of Amador and Taaramae - Kung and Paulus, and being joined by Brambilla, who was dropped in the previous climb, but was always within a minute of the group
Just 5 km for the leader’s group to finally reach the top of this climb, and now Amador has joined Taaramae in the chase effort. Despite this, still 15 riders in this group, with Schelling, Bonnin and Cink being the latest drops, while a rider like Sagan is amazingly still on the group, fighting for his, now gone with Keinath’s jump in GC - top10 hopes, although it looks like he won’t be there for too much time
Under the 20-km kit, Slagter is almost one minute back to Keinath. The distance hasn’t changed a lot since both reached the top of Horquette, so the German looks safe for the stage win, but the gap that they should care more is with Spilak’s group, as in the moment that we said before, the leader’s group was still 23 minutes behind Keinath
2 km to the top of the climb for the group, and now only 11 riders left on it. Sagan has finally been dropped, but it’s fair to assume that it was only because Dekker completely cracked, and a split was made for those behind Dekker in the group, including Haig, Pinot and Nibali. Now the gap seems impossible to overcome, but maybe in the descent, they’ll be back
They have finally made it to the top of Horquette d’Ancizan, with 10 riders remaining on this group, after Hirt wasn’t able to follow the others in the last km, but the gap remains in 23 minutes. Sagan’s group is only 1 minute behind Taaramae’s, so they have a chance to make it back in the long downhill to the finish
Only 8 km for Keinath, who is about to take the most important win of his career. The gap has rised a bit with Slagter, slightly going over the minute
Final km for Keinath! The German is going to win his first stage in the Tour de France, and what a way to do it...
And he raises his arm to celebrate this epic in Bagneres-de-Bigorre. He didn’t celebrate until the last 200 metres, showing how important it was to keep riding to the maximum to gain as much time as possible to the GC riders’ group
Another impressive performance in an unexpected stage for Slagter, after what he did in California. This will help him to move around the top10 places
Grmay finishes third, 4 minutes after Keinath. But the African rider will rise to a low-top10 place at the end of the stage for sure
All the remaining breakaway riders take the places between fourth and seventh, in this order; Koch, Borges, Lutsenko and Vanendert; while we wait for the group of Spilak to finish the stage, to see how much time has Keinath won
Still 10 km to go for the group of favourites, where everyone, including Carapaz and Faiers, who shouldn’t care about this fight, are relaying, which has help to reduce the gap to 22’30 at this point. One minute behind, there’s still Sagan’s group, with Nibali and Pinot, while Hirt has been dropped from that group also
Exactly 22 minutes after Nico Keinath crossed the line, Rein Taaramae does the same leading the group where the race leader is. This confirms that Keinath will be in the top5 after this stage, missing on fourth place by a few seconds
Sagan loses an extra 50 seconds, which won’t help him at all to fight for his top10 place, although the time gain on Dekker, which is around 3 minutes, helps the Slovak a lot
Nico Keinath is in the podium to receive his trophy for his well-deserved stage win today!
We see some changes in the top10 of GC, with Keinath jumping to fifth and Grmay to tenth, and Dekker and Sagan slipping out of the top10.
In the Points classification, Phinney is back on the lead, while Lutsenko has now a big rival in Grmay for the KoM, although it’s unlikely that he will be allowed to go in breakaways anymore, same as Keinath.
