Second of the three Alpine stages and probably the hardest of them. Not only because it ends in La Toussuire, but also because in just 140 kms the riders will have to climb Chaussy (cat.1), Croix de Fer (HC) and Mollard (Cat.2) before arriving to the foot of Toussuire. The short stage also means a high risk of lots of riders missing on the time limit.
Yesterday Simon Spilak made a major step in his attempt to become the second rider to win twice the Tour de France in MG-era, by increasing his lead to Phinney to 1’30, a gap that might be enough to guarantee him the win even if he can’t increase more that gap before the final tt
Despite the stage starting with Col de Chaussy, a Cat.1 climb, only three attempted to get in the breakaway.
Haig Chevrier Kulhavy
Haig is 17th in GC, 36 minutes behind Spilak, but Pendleton’s, with 2 riders barely ahead of the young Aussie, didn’t want him to escape today, so Copeland started to work in the bunch once the gap reached the minute
After only a few kms, Copeland’s rhythm left the bunch in just 47 riders, with the best riders already dropped being Dekker, Sagan and Formolo, who happened to have crashed yesterday, and also riders like Scarponi, Lövkvist, Nesset who are fighting for a top25 place being in the “gruppetto”
Tenorio must be feeling great today, because despite the high rhythm of Pendleton’s domestiques, who btw made Lutsenko one of the next riders to be dropped from the favourite’s group, while also making KoM leader Grmay to suffer a lot to stay in the group, has attacked and quickly joined the former leading duo of Haig and Kulhavy, as Chevrier couldn’t stay with them with such a high race pace.
Important to remark that Dekker has somehow managed to close the gap to the favourites’ group on his own and is in the back of the group
Tenorio is showing his strenght today, as he dropped every rider in that breakaway and went onto take the 16 points for being first in the top of this climb, although he has no chance of fighting for that jersey
Col de Chaussy - Cat.1
Tenorio 16
Chevrier 12
Kulhavy 10
Haig 8
Rosch 6
Taaramäe 4
Spilak 2
Nibali attacks once the group in on the descent of the climb, looking to be in the breakaway with Tenorio, Chevrier, Kulhavy and Haig, while in Spilak’s group there are only 26 riders! And the race leader has no team-mates with him!
Spilak Phinney Gesink, Van der Velde, Herrada, Brambilla Amador, Schelling Taaramäe, Paulus Yates Guldhammer Keinath Grmay, Pinot Wellens, Blikra Slagter Dekker Hirt, Hosek Arndt, Nerz Kangert Rosch Topchanyuk
And there are 118 km left in the stage!
Nibali, as one of the best descenders of the world, obviously caught every rider of the breakaway and even drop them in the downhill until he caught Tenorio once the terrain was flat for the first time in the stage. In the group Moser is working to avoid the Italian to have a big gap, thus isolating the race leader, as Kastrantas was coming in the next group, who is now almost 2 minutes behind Spilak’s
Haig, Chevrier and Kulhavy have been caught during the chase, which is strangely mostly led by Hirt instead of letting his team-mate Hosek to pull from the group. But this rhythm was too high for Keinath, who was almost dropped in Chaussy, and in the moment that the group is passing through the intermediate sprint, the German cracked, leaving the group in just 28 riders
Intermediate Sprint - Epierre
Tenorio 6
Nibali 4
Hosek 2
And now we’re left to 20 riders in the leader’s group, as firstly a group with Grmay, Haig, Paulus, Topchanyuk, Blikra and Chevrier was dropped, but then Pinot waited for Grmay and also Kulhavy couldn’t follow the rhythm of his team-mates. This is insane!
Finally Nibali and Tenorio were caught just 13 kms away from starting Croix de Fer, because at this rate, we would have started that climb with just 10 riders in the leading group. Now we’ll see if others decided to attack or if there’s a break and the riders that are still close to the group can comeback
As we could have expected, nobody was willing to attack neither to set the pace, so everything slowed down and by the time that they were starting Croix de Fer, the group was again formed by 70 riders
After a very disappointing first part of the climb, with Festina setting just a slow pace, with 12 kms to the top, both Nibali and Grmay launched an attack, which was answered by Jayco in the same way that Pendleton’s did in the first climb; with a domestique pulling hard from the group
Tenorio joined them very quickly and that only made Spotify to put Blikra to work in the front, as Lowe was done. Then Novak, the last domestique for Spilak, took over, making the group to be reduce again to 30 riders, with pretty much the same riders than in the earlier 26-rider group, except for Haig and a few domestiques not being there anymore, and having a few “new” domestiques in that group
Desperate race situations require desperate moves, and that’s exactly what Phinney thought with 5 kms to the top of the climb and 60 to the finish. Novak had finally cracked, and surprisingly the American started to pull of the group. Taaramae and Gesink reacted quickly to that change of rhythm being on the American’s wheel, but for unknown reasons, Spilak didn’t, and now there’s a 30-second gap between both groups. Grmay was dropped from Tenorio and Nibali’s group, which is danger of being caught by Phinney’s, as there’s only 25 seconds between them
And just as sudden as it begans, Phinney’s move ended when he caught Nibali and Tenorio. Quite disappointing move by the American, who has allowed Spilak to recover that gap without making any efforts
This is just... pathetic. They have ride the last 4 kms of the climb with an average speed of 9 km/h, and even Grmay doesn’t care about KoM points, as he must feel safe in his win in that classification
Col du Croix de Fer - HC
Novak 20
Spilak 14
Grmay 12
Herrada 10
Taaramae 8
Kangert 6
Gesink 5
Amador 4
Wellens 3
Phinney 2
Nibali 1
At same point during Mollard’s climb it looked like everyone was waiting for La Toussuire and get beaten by Spilak there instead of trying something now, but suddenly Nesset attacked with 2 kms to the top of Mollard, and other 8 riders followed him
But Nibali shut down that move, except for Nesset and Tenorio, who were able to stay in the front, and have managed to create a 1’30 gap in the first part of the descent of Mollard
Col du Mollard - Cat. 2
Nesset 10
Tenorio 8
Grmay 6
Kangert 4
Faiers 2
Just 20 kms left in the stage, and La Toussuire starts in only 2 kms. Nesset and Tenorio have a 2-minute gap to the group, where there 37 riders ready to fight for a stage win today
15 km to go for Tenorio and Nesset, who now have 3 minutes on the bunch, where no one again wants to do any kind of work, maybe waiting for a closer distance to fire again
Taaramae launches his attack with 12 kms to go! With so much climb ahead of him, it might not be only an attack for the stage win, but also for the podium
Guldhammer and Yates have tried to follow the Estonian, but Taaramae is going really strong now, quickly opening a 30-second gap to Spilak’s group.
And there’s we were waiting for! Phinney attacking with 11,5 kms to go! Spilak follows him quickly, but there’s no sign of Gesink despite Herrada joining Phinney’s move
Neither Phinney or Spilak have cracked with that attack, but there are still more than 10kms of climb left. Taaramae has build a 40-second gap to Phinney, Spilak and Guldhammer, while Herrada is doing an awesome work for Gesink, trying to bridge the gap to the leaders’ group, which now is 25 seconds. Of Gesink’s group, only Keinath is missing now from the riders that started the climb there
In the leading group, who with 10 kms to go only has a minute over Taaramae, Nesset is attacking Tenorio!
Nesset took the risk, but Tenorio is much stronger, and once Nesset ended his attack, the Spaniard counter-attacked and the Aker rider had no chance to follow him
9 kms for Phinney, who keeps pulling from Spilak and Guldhammer. It’s his only chance, to try to crack Spilak with his rhythm, a rhythm that seems to be really good, as the gap to Gesink has rised to almost one minute, once Herrada cracked and Gesink hasn’t started to chase himself. The gap with Taaramae remains in 40 seconds though
Taaramae has already passed Nesset and is only 15 seconds behind Tenorio with 6 km left. The Estonian has a great day for sure and is using it the best he knows to. He has increased his gap to Spilak and Phinney to almost 1 minute
Spilak has started to colaborate with Phinney, to the disbelief of the crowd here in La Toussuire. Nobody understands why he does that. Either attack him or stay on his wheel.
Also, Gesink and Amador looks to be finally present in the stage and together with Wellens have separated themselves for the group, but their gap to Spilak is still one minute
Once Taaramae catches Tenorio under the arc of the last 5 kms, he doesn’t hesitate and inmediately rides away from the Spaniard, to avoid any surprises in the end
With less than 4 km to go, the groups remains the same, except that Nesset has been caught and surpassed by Spilak’s group and is now in Gesink’s, with the only other change being that the gap between Spilak, Phinney and Guldhammer to Gesink, Amador and Wellens is now only 36 seconds
It’s safe to say that the stage win is going to be for Taaramae, with a 1-minute gap with 1,5 km to go, but behind him things are getting interesting, as Gesink has dropped both Amador and Wellens, and is about to join Spilak’s group, who has away taken care of the rhythm, maybe trying to drop Phinney
And there we have Spilak’s attack inside the final 2 kms! Phinney hasn’t been able to properly hold his wheel, and it might key to whether Spilak is succesfull or not. Neither Tenorio, Guldhammer or Gesink have been able to follow them
Taaramae is now inside the final km, while Phinney and Spilak keep batteling for the GC. The Slovenian hasn’t been able to drop the American, and they are now under the Flamme Rouge. Both have opened a 20-seconds gap to Gesink, Guldhammer and Tenorio, but unless Taaramae cracks heavily now, they have missed on the stage win
Rein Taaramae wins in La Toussuire! The Estonian was so concentrated on gaining as much time as possible that he didn’t even celebrate the win
Spilak beats an exhausted Phinney in the sprint for the second place, which means that Spilak will increase his lead in four more seconds, to 1’34 over the American
Gesink is fourth today, losing one minute to Taaramae, which isn’t dangerous for his podium place yet, as he still has over 3 minutes on the Estonian, and around 30 seconds to Spilak and Phinney, which almost end any chances he did of winning the race, as he is now 3 minutes behind Spilak
Amador finishes fifth, just ahead of Tenorio and Guldhammer. The Costa Rican has lost 1’45 to Taaramae, and his fourth place is in real danger ahead of the final mountain stage.
Wellens arrives 20 seconds later in eighth place, in a solid performance of the Belgian
Yates and Dekker end up losing almost 3’30 on Taaramae, and almost two minutes to Guldhammer, which means that Yates will lose a place in GC against the Dane. Just ahead of them Nesset had arrived in ninth place.
A group with Hirt, Slagter, Nibali, Arndt, Schelling, Pinot and Brambilla arrives a few second later than Yates and Dekker
Grmay finishes 8 minutes after Taaramae, losing more than 4 minutes to Slagter, Dekker, Hirt or NIbali, his rivals for a top10 place. He still has several minutes of gap, and might rise a place depending on when Keinath arrives, but he might lose that top10 tomorrow or in the TT
Keinath arrives almost 3 minutes behind Grmay, something that might make him lose his place in GC against him, but we’ll have to wait for the official classification to know with certainity
Third stage win for Taaramae in the race, which can be considered as a nice consolation price for crashing out of the lead in the Pyrenees. Funnily, this is the first win in a mountain stage for him, as the other two had been in Mur-de-Bretagne and Planche des Belles Filles, which were considered as hilly stages.
In the points classification, only one point is the gap between Phinney and Spilak, with Taaramae 15 points behind the American. With a mountain stage and a TT before Champs Elysses stage, that might still change.
What doesn’t look to be changed is the winner of KoM classification. There are 50 points left to win in the race, and Grmay has a 30-point lead on Lutsenko. And the Kazakh has been showing signs of extreme tiredness for the past stages
As we advised at the start of the stage, the short stage would surely cause some riders to finish outside of the time limit. Porto has lost 4 riders today, including his sprinter, Coutinho and his most important rider during the race, Borges, while Strava has lost Boeckmans and another two riders from his train. Haute Route also loses his sprinter with Keukeleire.
And finally two riders from the Control Team are also out of the race. Although they might be reinstated
