Look at that profile! Doesn’t that just warm every cycling fan’s heart? Well, those in the peloton today who don’t fancy themselves as great climbers might not be as enthusiastic. At 176 kilometers, it’s also not an especially short stage and five climbs of the categories 1 and 2 will make for a very, very tough day.
Just how tough will be determined by how hard the GC contenders make it, as usual. But there are a lot of incentives for some of the most capable climbers to shed their rivals as early as possible. The likes of Padun, Roman, Min and Areruya are between 1’40 and 2’30 behind overall leader Gidich and shouldn’t rely on the mountain top finish on the final stage alone.
Barta in third place, currently 43 seconds off first place, has also established himself as a prime podium candidate - at least. And there are a number of good but not great climbers in the Top 10 who also want to keep their positions. First and formost of course Powless in second place, but also Vlasov, Pogacar and Conci in fourth, fifth and sixth, who are all within a minute of Gidich. And even Van Niekerk and Errazkin immediately behind them may be mainly puncheurs but can also climb well.
A lot is on the line for a lot of riders, and there’s also a ton of mountain points to be hunted today. Let’s see how this all plays out:
A quartet opens the day. Misbah, Hindley and Yamamoto are all capable climbers, Erdenebat much less so.
Foss, Abdurrahman and Hibatullah follow, also good climbers, the former two had even earned a spot as GC long shots in the race preview but have already lost a good chunk of time.
It almost looked like everything had settled down after those two attacks already, but another five riders led by Zimmermann goes after them. The two groups ahead have not joined forces just yet.
Those five riders have caught up with the trio around Foss, but the original attackers are still more than a minute in front. Another group has formed just ahead of the peloton, but they will surely be brought back shortly.
We’re on the first spike of the day, 30 kilometers into the stage, and a full dozen riders have established a lead of 1’30 on the peloton, which has slowed down a bit. It looks like they’re going to be the group of the day alongside the first four riders up ahead, so let’s quickly take a look at all 16 of them:
Yamamoto
Matsumoto
Abdurrahman
Castrillo
Misbah
Hibatullah
Hirschi
Vingegaard
Erdenebat
Hindley
Foss
Le Court
Sosa
Williams
Zimmermann
Taminiaux
We see a lot of similarly strong riders, many decent climbers among them. It’s actually easier to list those who really struggle on steep roads. First and foremost, that’s Erdenebat, Taminiaux and Castrillo. Sosa is the only one with mountain points so far (8), Foss is the best in the GC at + 4’10.
In addition to all those riders, Barthe, who had attacked late, is now a good minute ahead of the peloton, trying to catch up.
And we’re still not done! A quartet with Christensen, Albanese, Mäder and Giannoutsos has broken free, but this is apparently too much for the peloton, which has started to increase the pace again.
As soon as they hit the mountains, the first escapees have trouble following. In a big surprise, Foss is already in trouble. The rider ahead of him is Albanese, the only one of the aforementioned four late attackers who made it, and Zimmermann also loses touch. Barthe has not been successful in his pursuit and is back in the peloton.
Another slight surprise: Castrillo is leading the group up the Col du Granier, an 8 kilometer long climb at a steady 6%, and more and more riders drop. Only Hindley, Hibatullah, Hirschi, Williams and the Campari trio remain up front, although Sosa is working his way back.
But the pace soon slows down again and we’re back to, or rather up to, 18 riders, as Christensen and Mäder followed Albanese’s example and caught up, while Erdenebat expectedly fell behind.
Williams makes the first move towards the summit, going after the 10 points available there, but this seems early. Still, he gets some seperation and Sosa tries to follow.
Williams just kept going and left everyone behind. He crosses the summit 40 seconds ahead of Sosa.
Sosa, who now has 16 points, just three fewer than Reddish, has around half a minute on the rest of the group, which again splits as some of them attack for the remaining points.
Ahead of the first category 1 climb of this race, here’s the situation. Only Williams remains up front, 15 riders behind him, two additional riders have not made it back yet.
Williams did not go full throttle and is soon back with the group. But that makes them slow down pretty significantly. Albanese catches up again, but more importantly, the peloton immediately cuts the gap in half to under two and a half minutes.
With 16 points on offer at the mountain sprint, Sosa doesn’t want to hesitate and is the first to attack.
Zimmermann and Foss, who had trouble following the pace earlier, are now the ones in his wheel, with a gap to the rest of the breakaway.
But like Williams before him, Sosa simply has the strength to lead all the way and he crosses the line first.
Foss holds on for second place ahead of Le Court and Hirschi. Again, the group breaks into pieces, let’s see if they find each other again on the descent.
Sosa has taken a pretty sizeable lead in the mountain classification now. Williams and Foss are the next best riders among the escapees.
Indeed, 16 riders make their way up the Semnoz together, three minutes ahead of the peloton. Only Albanese and Taminiaux dropped back for good.
But they’re not the only ones. Hindley, Christensen, Castrillo and Mäder also fall behind and with more than 7 kilometers until the summit, it’s tough to see them making it back.
We haven’t seen much of the peloton so far and that’s because it’s still fairly large. Festina, Farfetch and Xero ride a steady pace and shed one rider after another, but there are still more than 80 riders in this group.
Williams leads the breakaway and puts a lot of pressure on the other riders. Vingegaard and Misbah are dropped, ten men remaining.
Matsumoto has taken over now and forces another seperation. First Le Court and Zimmermann, then Sosa drop, which opens the door for someone else to potentially go for the polkadots. Foss looks like he’s struggling now, too, Campari still has three men in this group, Sauber two. Four kilometers to the top.
Yamamoto also can’t keep up as soon as Williams accelerates to go for the mountain points, but the other four go out of the saddle to counter him.
Williams went just a bit too early and it’s Hirschi who takes the 16 points. Abdurrahman is second and the trio has distanced Hibatullah and Matsumoto.
Sosa collected two more points but Williams and Hirschi are within reach of the lead now. Two more category 2 climbs remain, each one gives up to 10 points. But they have to make it there first, of course. The peloton is just under four minutes behind with 60 kilometers to go.
Another look at the big picture at the foot of the penultimate climb. It’s clear that if any rider from a breakaway makes it, it’s going to be one of our three current leaders.
We don’t know yet if it’s worth a mention, but of course there are many riders who are by now a long way behind the peloton. Halvorsen and stage three winner Ovsyannikov are in this group some 20 minutes behind (alongside Reddish who will have to give up his jersey today), but Cullaigh, Hodeg and a few others are another few minutes further back. With two more mountains, the deficit is only going to get bigger - we’ll have to see how large the time limit is going to be.
But back to the front, where our race leaders are fighting not only for the stage win, but also for the polkadots jersey. But they’ve been through a lot today and it shows. Only Hirschi can muster a short acceleration to take the 10 points ahead of Williams and Abdurrahman. Which means that we now have three riders (the former two and Sosa) all tied at 34 points! Going by the GC, the jersey would currently go to Hirschi.
Higuita attacks from the peloton to collect a few points himself. The pack still consists of 50 riders, no action from the favorites so far. The Top 19 overall riders are all there ( De Bod in 20th place has been dropped earlier), as well as most other good climbers who are a bit further behind in the GC. They’re still some two minutes behind the breakaway.
It’s worth taking a closer look at this absolute beast of a climb. In total, it’s only just over four kilometers long, but it’s excruciatingly steep almost all the way, with the exception of that short downhill section and maybe the final 100 or 200 meters.
I mean, just look at that! The first few hundred meters go up to 23%! That’s insanity! The trio up front carried around a minute and a half over the downhill and flat lead up.
The first rider to separate himself a little from the peloton, albeit only by increasing his pace, is Min. He has a lot of time to make up in the GC, so it’s probably wise to try something early. Rikunov tries to control the situation for Padun, Gidich is already completely isolated.
Into the short downhill section, Abdurrahman has left Williams and Hirschi behind. He might be the strongest of the three, but will it be enough to stay ahead? 2.5 kilometers to the summit now.
Min continues to extend his gap to the other favorites, so Areruya and Gidich decide to take manners into their own hands!
2 kilometers from the summit, Min reaches Abdurrahman and the breakaway adventure is over. Still, a tremendous effort by all three. Areruya has left Gidich a bit behind in his pursuit, but the peloton is still even further behind. Padun comes to the front himself now.
Padun closes the gap quickly and it seems almost effortless. Roman and Powless now lead what is left from the peloton.
GC wise, the biggest rider currently falling behind is fifth overall Pogacar. Alongside eigth overall Errazkin, he’s in a bigger group around a minute behind group Roman / Powless, where the other Top 10 riders are all present.
In another rather disappointing showing, Schleck also loses touch with that group. Ahead of him, Bernal and Almeida are also struggling.
We’re closer and closer to the summit and Roman attacks now to catch up to the leaders. Conci and Madouas try to follow, an impressive performance by both of them.
But they don’t quite manage to catch his wheel and are instead joined in their pursuit by Van Niekerk in his green jersey. Aular then leads a group of ten that includes Powless, Barta and Vlasov (2nd, 3rd and 4th overall), former escapees Abdurrahman, Hirschi and Williams as well as Inkelaar, Almeida and Rikunov.
In the closing meters of the climb, Gidich is in trouble for the first time. Both he and Roman can’t quite keep up with Padun’s high pace. But there’s still 12 kilometers of decent and flat that they could use to get back to the front.
The chasers behind them are now scattered all over the place. Van Niekerk is closest to Gidich while Aular and Barta - the latter in an effort to save his podium position - have seperated themselves from the rest of the group around Powless.
Padun continues to push, but Roman has found his way back (they crossed the mountain sprint in this exact order). The gap to Gidich and now also Van Niekerk is at around half a minute as they head into the downhill.
Here’s how things stand as everyone crosses the summit. Madouas seems to have an outstanding day and also does his best to keep his great GC position. But the gaps are pretty significant behind them by now. Powless and Barta are in danger of losing their place on the podium for the moment.
Although Roman is a stellar downhill rider, he sits at the back of the group all the way down, leaving the bulk of the work to Areruya, arguably the worst descender of the four. This allows Van Niekerk and Gidich to come closer again, and they make contact just as we head onto the final four flat kilometers.
Roman may have saved his energy for just this moment! He doesn’t want to wait for a sprint where Areruya would be the main favorite and instead tries his luck on his own.
But just as he’s not a great sprinter, he’s not a great rouleur either and is soon caught and then immediately overtaken by an accelerating Padun! 2.7 kilometers to the finish now - who’s got the most left in the tank?
Roman has another acceleration in him and latches on to Padun. The two establish a small gap as they head towards the flamme rouge. Min leads the chase, he’s arguably the worst sprinter of the bunch and just wants to make sure there are no further time gaps.
And he does manage to catch up to the duo inside the final 800 meters. He starts the sprint with Areruya in his slipstream.
Roman takes the lead with one final punch but Areruya and Van Niekerk - who could score a sensational third stage win here - are a bit quicker now. Gidich does seem out of it.
Areruya is almost on par with Roman now in the Festina - Isostar sandwich but the Serb is still going strong. It’s definitely between those three now!
And Areruya takes it! Perfectly timed, he manages to capitalize on his superior sprinting ability. Roman hangs on for second and collects valuable bonus seconds, Van Niekerk increases his lead in the points classification - and makes additional progress in the GC - in third place.
Gidich finishes fourth ahead of Padun and Min, both of whom make big strides in the GC just like Roman, How much exactly depends on the riders coming in next.
Madouas crosses the line 1’20 behind them in seventh place. Having started the day 11th overall, he makes a strong Top 10 case - as does Conci, who follows around half a minute later (ignore the Jayco rider in between, he’s on another part of the circuit).
Aular finishes ninth - really quite a pity that he lost so much time earlier in the race.
Vlasov, Inkelaar, Almeida, Rikunov and Powless sprint over the line next, 3 minutes behind today’s winner. Barta, who held a 20 second lead on this group for the most part of the descent and the flat, is swept up in the final few hundred meters and finishes alongside Abdurrahman, both with the same time as the others.
Bernal and Schleck lead the next bigger group to the finish, which also includes Pogacar, today’s biggest loser in terms of the GC.
The time limit is eventually set at over an hour, which everyone comfortably makes. Still, it’s going to be interesting how much today’s efforts impact the sprinters tomorrow.
Tour de l’Avenir 
