The Parc Olympique Lyonnais, home of the eponymous football club whose men’s team won 7 straight league titles in the 2000s and whose women’s team have won a record 8 Champions League titles.
The transfer yesterday evening was one of the longer ones of the race, almost 300 kilometers southeast from Contres to today’s starting city, Clermont-Ferrand. Described as a tectonic hotspot, the volcanic chain Chaîne de Pys flanks the city to the west, but we turn east through the Massif Central towards Lyon, the third largest city in France.
On the way, the riders pass no less than 8 classified mountain sprints, including two of the second category, namely the Col Saint-Thomas and the Col du Joncin. The Côte de Fourvière 7 kilometers from the finish could serve as the springboard for a decisive attack for the stage win, and looking at the profile, that could well come from a breakaway.
Arensman leads the mountain classification fairly comfortably by 39 points. With 48 points available, Barbio is the only rider who can topple him, and only if he scores near the maximum. But as some of the stronger climbers already have large deficits in the GC, this could be the first stage where we see some of them go for it and enter the KoM battle.
Sivakov is still in the yellow jersey, but with Herklotz lurking just 20 seconds behind, that’ll be under attack today. Eastman at + 54 and Morton at + 1’09 seem like longshots and probably have the next few days marked red, but the latter proved his good form four days ago, so who knows.
The starting line is still visible in the background when Hofstede launches the first attack of the day.
Arensman is quick to react. He knows he won’t be able to compete in the high mountains, so this may be one of his last chances to score big.
Many more riders want to join the breakaway. For now, they are Phodingam, Dima, Neilands, Korsaeth, Pronskiy, Postlberger, Vosekalns and Nareklishvili.
Teams are aware of the potential that the breakaway has today and continue to send riders ahead. Now it’s Delco, Mullen and Tolhoek.
And then another 8 riders are on the move: Van Hooydonck, Godon, Arissol, Leung, Seboka, Verschaeve, Parra Bustamente and Vanthourenhout. That makes it 21 riders so far ahead of the peloton, which doesn’t make any efforts to increase the pace yet.
There’s a name we’d been expecting: Barbio tries his luck and is followed by Lehtinen and Ulloa, but this time, the peloton brings them back. Another attempt led by Johannessen is shut down as well – we seem to have reached the peloton’s limit.
So we indeed have this group of 21 who will tackle the remaining 176 kilometers, or however many they’ll be ahead in case they get caught, together. Huski Chocolate and King Power have three men in there, a couple other teams have two. Many of the names we’ve seen before in breakaways, some of them are here for the first time. Perhaps the most notable name is Vosekalns, a pre-race favorite for the polkadots jersey and the best climber here alongside Parra Bustamente. The best puncheur though is arguably Hofstede, perhaps next to Godon.
Sensibly, no one competes for the intermediate sprint. The road now turns upwards towards the first two mountain sprints.
Van Hooydonck attacks first, he’s followed closely by Arensman.
Arensman shows some signs of weakness but no one is close enough to capitalize and he bags 8 points, taking his total to a round 100. Tolhoek, Hofstede and Vosekalns get the remaining 6, 4 and 2 points.
Van Hooydonck once again gets the jump on everyone, Arensman is in second position but more closely marked this time.
And indeed, it’s no more points for him here. The competition has simply gotten much stiffer. Tolhoek and Hofstede come second and third, it’s 6, 4 and 2 points for Van Hooydonck and them.
Those climbs were too difficult for this group of 5 including Neilands, Arissol, Postlberger, Leung and Vanthourenhout. They get distanced and only make it back after a lengthy chase of almost 20 kilometers.
Meanwhile, a couple of teams in the peloton seem to have ambitions for the stage win today. De Stijl, perhaps for Yates or Guerreiro, Zwift for Ackermann and Puma for Herklotz, with occasional input from Cedevita for Beltran, keep the breakaway at a relatively short leash and don’t let the lead grow to more than 4 minutes.
On the foot of the Col de la Croix des Fourches, the lead is down to 1’30! It looks like against all odds, this really isn’t a stage for the breakaway. The high pace in the peloton has led quite a few riders to be dropped already. Last on the road, perhaps angling for a spot in the lanterne rouge battle, is Goldstein. He trails the peloton by a good 5 minutes at this point already and is 13 minutes ahead of Young in the GC. Perhaps even more notably though is that Schädlich, second to last, has just lost touch with the peloton as well.
The mountain sprint this time goes to Delco ahead of Van Hooydonck and Godon.
On the Col de Joncin, Hofstede picks up the pace and shatters the breakaway, leaving among others Arensman behind. The peloton is still just over a minute behind them, though.
Tolhoek attacks with 1.5 kilometers left on the climb, Huski are really making their mark on this breakaway. Only seven riders can follow the duo in red and white.
In the end though, it’s Vosekalns who accelerates past everyone to pick up 10 points. The others go to Phodingam, Parra Bustamente, Mullen and only 2 remain for Tolhoek.
The peloton has already shrunk to just 45 riders as they cross the summit 1’15 behind the leaders. Aker leads the way with Amezawa and Preidler next to Herklotz and Yates. The best placed riders missing are Foss and Johannessen, 11th and 25th in the GC as well as 2nd and 4th in the young riders competition. Notably, in addition to Ackermann, Hsu is still in here as well.
Only five riders remain at the head of the race: Vosekalns, Phodingam, Parra Bustamente, Mullen and Tolhoek. They keep a steady lead of one minute on the peloton but it’s tough to see them survive for another 40 kilometers.
Tolhoek wants the next 5 mountain points on the Côte de Charnay. It looks like Vosekalns and Mullen can’t follow.
It turns out that Phodingam is the strongest rider left. Vosekalns and Mullen are swept up by the peloton and it’s only a matter of time for Parra Bustamente and Tolhoek, too.
Meanwhile, Hsu has been dropped from the peloton alongside some of the former breakaway riders as well as notably Amezawa.
Weirdly, Ackermann has been doing a ton of work at the head of the peloton and doesn’t look fresh anymore at all. He would be the top favorite if it came down to a reduced bunch sprint, but instead, Zwift seems to be going for … Burke? He’s the only other rider of the team in there.
The pace has slowed down behind him and Phodingam reaches the top of the Côte de Limonest with a lead of 1’05. 22 kilometers to go for him.
Phodingam enters the final 10 kilometers, now already in the streets of Lyon, with a lead of 28 seconds on the still Ackermann-led peloton. You’d think it will be all over if and when attacks come flying at the Côte de Fourvière, but who knows?
And there’s the first one! Not from one of the GC contenders but instead it’s Lafay who goes for it!
He quickly catches up to and overtakes Phodingam. Bettiol tries to control the situation, Yates and Preidler are behind him and Beltran and Herklotz are close, too.
Lafay reaches the summit with 19 seconds on Phodingam, who’s now overtaken by Yates and Preidler. The two have attacked, leaving Madouas and Goos to chase.
Burke joins the chase now as well, someone please give Zwift a crash course in tactics! Lafay is about to be caught by Yates and Preidler, they have some 30 seconds on the peloton with just over 4 flat kilometers to go.
Yates attacks immediately upon catching up to Lafay. Three kilometers to go, this should be between these guys.
Burke and Madouas still try their best, with many of the GC contenders closely behind.
Lafay catches back up to Preidler, but Yates is gone!
The sprint starts in the peloton. Pidcock comes up next to Madouas, then Wellens, Herklotz and Latour are the first of the contenders. Lafay is about to be caught after a strong effort, Yates is now struggling, but surely he’s too far ahead?
There are now bonus seconds available for the peloton, either 8 or even 12 If they catch Preidler. But currently, it’s still Pidcock ahead of the climbers!
No being caught: Adam Yates! With a perfectly prepared and executed move, he takes Stage 10! Brilliant effort!
Preidler gets overtaken with just 100 meters to go, Pidcock scores a great second place and at the very last second, Herklotz pips Wellens to take third and 8 valuable bonus seconds. Latour is fifth, Sivakov seventh, now only 12 seconds ahead of the German.
Guerreiro makes it two De Stijl riders in the Top 8, then come Godoy, Schelling, Geoghegan Hart, Morton and Eastman.
Cedevita once again can’t turn their strengths into something tangible as Pogacar and Beltran finish 14th and 16th. Burke finishes 17th, Ackermann ultimately not even in this group. One of the weirder team performances for sure by Zwift.
On top of everything, Young has a really solid day and loses the Lanterne Rouge to Dillier. Looking at these performances, it doesn’t feel unlikely though that the Swiss will soon fall victim to the time limit.
Tomorrow, of course, is when we hit the Alps! Herklotz has his eye on yellow, but Sivakov has looked well so far and certainly won’t give it up without a fight. And then there’s Morton, who actually was the strongest of the contenders on the previous – and so far only – mountain stage. And Tenorio. And Wellens. And Eastman, currently third in the GC. So many possibilities!
Today, though, no jersey switched hands. Herklotz collected some points, Pogacar is now up to second in the young rider classification, but still almost 5 minutes behind Sivakov.
Tour de France 
