In the winter, the station de Nistos is a ski resort. Today, the stage is set for cyclists.
Yesterday’s time trial set the stage - now it’s time for the Pyrenees to decide the final tableau of the general classification. Three consecutive mountain top finishes provide ample opportunity for those who have some catching up to do, and will make sure that we end up with a worthy winner on the podium in Paris.
The prospect of calmer racing might make this stage more attractive for a breakaway, but at the same time, flat roads aren’t typically where you build the big leads that you’ll likely still need going into the finale. And there aren’t many mountain points to compensate for the efforts on the way either. We’ll see who makes the commitment nonetheless.
The first to try is someone his manager has been pleading to do something for a bit now: Munoz attacks, followed by the never-tiring Arensman and one of the Dutch’s biggest KoM rivals, Foss.
Foss is 4th in the mountain classification, Beltran is 3rd, two points ahead, and the Colombian is on the move following Kritskiy.
It’s really a different caliber of riders than earlier in the race. The next four guys to go for it are Roglic, Pinot, Giannoutsos and Lehtinen.
Chamorro, Almeida, Sequera and Nesset attack as well, which prompts Puma into action at the head of the peloton.
The latter three are caught, Chamorro is still trying to get away, when the breakaway reaches the first mountain sprint on the Col del Biouche. Beltran adds 5 points, Foss adds 3, they now have 63 and 59 to Arensman’s 100. 38 points are left on today’s stage, meaning Beltran needs to win every single KoM sprint including at the finish line to take the polka dot jersey by one point.
For a dozen or so kilometers, Puma really tried to chase Chamorro down and at the same time kept the gap to the breakaway close. Then, they relented, leaving the Isostar rider stranded in the middle. He’s around 2’15 behind the breakaway and 2’45 ahead of the peloton as he passes through the intermediate sprint in Saint-Girons.
There are four mountain sprints within a bit under 40 kilometers in the middle third of this stage. First is the Côte de la Roque, where Beltran and Foss add another 5 and 3 points. Arensman scores the last one though, meaning that Beltran can at most tie him. The Cedevita star is of course way ahead in the GC, though he’s not the best placed of this group: That is Foss, 15th at + 12’29. With the peloton some five minutes behind them, that places the Norwegian in the virtual Top 10.
Which is the territory of Godoy, Schelling and Wellens. Accordingly, their teams don’t let the breakaway get too far ahead.
On the Col de Larrieu, Beltran is the strongest once again, keeping the polka dot dream alive. Arensman can’t keep up, but he’s actually not the last breakaway rider on the road: Kritskiy, Munoz and Roglic are all riding behind him.
Between the Col de Larrieu and the Col d’Aspet, poor Chamorro is caught. He fought bravely, but also spent a lot of energy rather foolishly, if I may say so.
4 for 4 for Beltran, Arensman falls short by centimeters. Giannoutsos shows himself at the front, while Munoz and Roglic continue to look unwell. Their lead on the peloton has bounced between 4’30 and 6’00 for a while now.
Beltran remains flawless today. At 85 points, he’s now exactly those 16 points behind Arensman that he would get for winning the stage. But the peloton, as we’ve seen so often in this race, isn’t giving them a free pass. 4’30 is what they get for the remaining 50-odd kilometers, many of which are flat.
Speaking of the peloton, that’s becoming an increasingly smaller group. Following those four climbs, it’s down to just 34 riders. Karnulin (16th), Nesset (21st) and Kirsch (23rd) are the only Top 25 riders that haven’t made the cut.
Some good time trialists and rouleurs such as Christian, Van Hooydonck and Abreu are setting the pace in the peloton. But the breakaway hasn’t been taking it easy either and they enter the final 15 kilometers with just over 3 minutes of a lead. Here’s what they’re looking at on their way to the Station de Nistos-Cap Nestès.
Still on flat-ish roads, Munoz attacks. Either he has recovered a lot, or he knows he doesn’t have it today and just wants to go out with a bang. You have to respect it either way. Pinot and Foss counter, the others stay calm for now.
With just over 10 kilometers to go, those three have a lead of some 40 seconds on their former companions …
… while Chiarello sets the first attack from the peloton! Not much faith in Giannoutsos in the ELCO team car, it seems.
Just moments later, we have a much more dangerous attack: Tenorio makes a move! Latour and Godoy are with him, and Herklotz will be very grateful, because that prompts Sequera and Koep to pursue.
Koep ends up bringing them back into the fold and the pace slows down again. Chiarello is still around a minute ahead of this group, making his way towards the breakaway, where the Pinot trio leads by only 20 seconds on the rest of the group, and now just two minutes on the peloton.
Inded, those three are soon caught, but while Munoz relents, Pinot and Foss go again, this time with Roglic.
Meanwhile, Tenorio increases the pace again, Latour and Morton in his wheel. Herklotz is a bit further behind, but still has Stork and Madouas with him. 8 kilometers to go.
Latour and Morton overtake Tenorio and get a gap. Herklotz doesn’t want any of that, he goes after them himself!
All three soon reach the breakaway, only two riders are left in front of them: Roglic and Pinot.
And it’s not going to be easy for those two: With the rest of the favorites catching up, Morton attacks again! Herklotz tries to strike back.
It’s a formality, but still: Beltran will not win the stage, Arensman gets to keep his jersey for another day. With both Beltran and Foss coming closer and closer, tomorrow might actually be the last – but never say never.
Morton reaches Pinot and immediately starts pulling him along. But Roglic is still a good 50 seconds up the road and looking pretty well so far. They are in the almost flat parts now, before the road rises again with 2 kilometers to go.
Morton’s gap to this group is only growing, and fast! Herklotz either can’t or doesn’t want to do the work alone, but other than a very tame effort from Giannoutsos, no one is helping. This is the worst case scenario for the German: First, it’s 50, then 60, now almost 70 seconds to the cycleYorkshire captain.
Morton smells blood in the water, he leaves Pinot behind, increasing his gap to Herklotz to 1’40!
But will it be enough for a stage win? Roglic seems to have been bluffing well earlier, because he’s still looking good. Around 1.5 of the steepest kilometers of the day lay ahead of him, then the road gets softer again towards the line. He’s got 45 seconds on Morton.
In the main group, Herklotz may have found a savior: Latour now sets the pace - Morton is just one place ahead of him in the GC, but with a gap of 2’30, is that really a realistic goal to spend energy for? Either way, Puma will thank him for it.
And Morton is really struggling now, too. The gap melts away, quickly dropping below a minute again as Latour and Herklotz lead the group.
Roglic is still on pace though. He takes 1’30 onto the final kilometer.
The first more prominent victim of Latour’s acceleration is Pogacar. 11th in the GC, the Slovenian gets some help from his teammate who had been dropped earlier.
Herklotz now accelerates, making the last few pedal strokes to catch Morton himself. Latour is left behind as a gap opens ahead of him. Tenorio, Pinot, Chiarello, Godoy and Eastman hold the yellow jersey’s wheel.
But none of that matters to Primoz Roglic. With an absolutely stellar ride up the final climb, he takes a well-deserved stage win.
Morton looks almost broken, only Tenorio and a strong Chiarello can somewhat keep up with Herklotz. At the tail end of the chasing group, Sivakov is losing contact!
Despite what looked like a truly vulnerable moment, Herklotz turns this stage into a success story. He takes second place, which comes with a few bonus seconds of course, but he also adds 8 seconds on Chiarello and 16 on Tenorio.
Morton follows another 8 seconds later, and himself with a 6 second gap to Latour, Pinot and Godoy.
Wellens, Eastman and Preidler are next, losing an additional 8 seconds (that’s 48 to Herklotz, if you’re counting).
Schelling, Hirt and Geoghegan Hart are next, crossing the line 13 seconds later. Yates is one of the bigger losers among the Top 10, he comes in on a 15th place, 1’08 behind Herklotz.
But that’s still 16 seconds better than Sivakov. He loses 1’06 to Tenorio and ’58 to Morton, dropping to 4th in the GC.
It is somewhat fitting that Arensman crosses the line chased down by Beltran. As mentioned before, 16 mountain points remain between them. Pogacar finishes 26th on the day behind Madouas, he loses two places in the GC.
To recap: Roglic delivers King Power their third stage win of the race, a very impressive performance. He climbs from 18th to 15th in the GC, but differences among the contenders weren’t too big today. Herklotz is now GC leader by 4 minutes, he re-takes the lead in the points classification, now 9 points ahead of Dainese, and moves up to 62 points in the mountain classification.
Sivakov drops from the podium but he, Morton in third and Tenorio in second place are still separated by less than 40 seconds. That’s around the same gap as between Latour, Eastman and Wellens in 5th through 7th place, with Yates another 13 seconds further behind, even though he didn’t look great today.
Only minor changes in the latter half of the Top 20, Pogacar and Karnulin both drop two spots, Pinot moves into 20th. But the more pressing question is, will someone else from that range have their day tomorrow, and will we finally, actually, see a larger breakaway group make it to the line? We have another mountain top finish, but more climbing and less flat roads (though not none) before it. Plenty will try, that’s for sure.
In other classification news, Gazelle were hit pretty hard in the team classification. They lost their 5 minute lead and now trail UBS by 35 seconds. Moser is ahead of them in second place at + 27, and EA Vesuvio and Aker are both within less than 4 minutes. This will be one to watch for the next couple of days.
In the Lanterne Rouge battle, Goldstein has a new main competitor in Moser, who had a terrible day and is now only 11 minutes ahead - that’s virtually nothing on tough mountain stages like the ones we’ve got coming up. But, as always, they have to make it to Paris in the first place.
Tour de France 
