Character
This bar fight of a Tour, rumbling through France at ever-heightening levels of conflict, mercifully, has halted the battles today for the second and final rest day of the 23-day race.
As we enter the final and decisive week containing the majestic, made-for-television Alps, the peloton will confront three of the most brutal stages in Tour history. The climbs are, literally, the stuff of legend: Col du Var at 2109 m/7000’ (“col” is a mountain); Col du Izoard at 2360m/7776’; Col du Galibier at 2642m/8668’; Col du l’Iseran – highest – 2770m/9000’ (!!); Montee de Tignes at 2089m/6854’; Cormet de Roselend at 1986m/6516’ and the final climb of the Tour to the mountaintop finish at Val Thorens, the 33.4 kilometer (21-mile) long climb up to 2365 meters/7760 feet. That’s 330 kilometers (206-miles) of uphill racing from Thursday through Saturday, just counting the category 1 and HC (denoting difficulty, cat 1 is brutal, HC mean “hors category”, basically so hard that one can’t even categorize it) climbs and not counting all of the category 2 and 3 climbs peppered in between. After the intense fighting of the past two-weeks and with all these mountains to come, we still have six racers grouped within 2’ 14” of the Yellow Jersey. Great spectacle to come indeed as le Tour builds to a crescendo.
Character will determine who wins this Tour as clearly, the riders are all very close in physical ablility. That quality was on abundant display yesterday on the stage to Foix Prat d’Albis beginning with the Deceuninck-Quickstep team and their spirited defense of the Yellow Jersey.
We’d all written off the team’s ability to defend in the mountains: I’d even stated that Alaphilippe had made a massive mistake, given his new ambitions for Yellow, by resigning with them. Well, the Blue Meanies showed what real professionalism is yesterday, displaying true character by shifting their normal flatlander mentality into that of Grand Tour champions and holding the threatening breakaway, containing Nairo Quintana – more about him in moment – Marc Soler and Andrey Amador of the never-say-die Movistar, to within two to four minutes the entire day, bringing Alaphilippe to the bottom of the final climb in perfect position. The man showing the greatest character of the team, the astonishing sprinter Elia Viviani who most likely sacrificed his personal chances for tomorrow’s sprint stage into Nimes by emptying himself on the road as he did, led his team over the penultimate climb earning the very deepest respect from the entire cycling world, from fellow racers to the directors to the media, in the process. Viviani is shifting to the Cofidis team next year, and it’s clear that his sprinting abilities will be secondary to the sense of professionalism and craft he will bring to them. Viviani has been criticized in the past for his emotional responses to defeats – his tears at losing Gent-Wevelgem inspired much social media distain – but Italians, the people who, after all, gave us pasta, Ferrari and, most of all, Sophia Loren, are in fact emotional. It serves them as an excellent, additional energy source and Viviani’s grim, “you’ll pry this Yellow Jersey out of my cold, dead hands” attitude yesterday was a fine example of channeled emotion mixed with powerful character.
I’d criticized Quintana on Saturday, and felt bad about it when I saw he was in the break yesterday, until the penultimate climb up the Mur de Péguère when, in difficulty, he signaled Marc Soler to come back to save him. Soler, and Amador it must be said, are the sort of racers worth their weight in gold to a team. Completely self-sacrificing and strong as Turks (a complementary French saying, please no one be offended), they, under Valverde’s leadership, make that team what it is. Soler, who had dropped back the same way the day before after Quintana blew their entire strategy, dutifully paced the Colombian up the climb, keeping him within 10-15 seconds of the front group. It was near the top, with about 500 meters to go, that Quintana, now recovered, suddenly went to the front and accelerated to close the gap, putting Soler in all sorts of difficulty, treating him in that manner as a disposable servant. He’ll never get off my bad list after that one, and, later on in the race, when Mikel Landa passed Quintana on the final climb without a glance or any acknowledgement at all of his teammate, it was clear that the team feels the same way. Movistar are racing for the Team Classification, which they won in 2015, 2016 and 2018, it is of paramount importance to them. They’ll see if they can get Landa on the podium, keep Quintana in the running because you never know, he could rally and go well in the final week, especially when things go about 2000 meters, but it’s not a happy situation there.
Yesterday’s final climb was just insane. The Groupama-FDj team was superb, having placed Swiss Champion Sébastien Reichenbach and Rudy Molard in front to wait for their leader, Thibaut Pino, on the final climb. Landa attacked out of the main contenders’ group behind the break, which was disintegrating into pieces under the attack of Simon Yates who jumped out of it for his second stage win of the Tour. Behind the Brit, all sorts of beautiful chaos was going on.
Reichenbach hooked up with Pino and rode his guts out for his leader to launch him with five-k to go to the top, his move dropping, for the second day, defending Tour champ Geraint Thomas, Jakob Fuglsang, the excellent Valverde (he’s 39!) and, yet another astonishment, Steven Kruijswijk. The Yellow Jersey, who, clearly, had been holding on by millimeters the entire climb, made the mistake of trying to follow Pino rather than pacing himself up the climb to limit his losses, went into the red zone, and was dropped. Egan Bernal kept alive the on-going mystery of who is truly the Ineos leader by staying with Pino, who’d, like a motorcycle, passed Landa before the top for second on the stage, before being dropped by the hard-charging Frenchman by 18”. Bora-Hansgrohe’s Emmanuel Buchmann, the most discreet man in the race, stayed with Bernal while 22-year old German, Lennard Kämna, yet another of the new generation taking over, finished ahead of the group containing Thomas, Kruijswijk and Valverde. Alaphilippe came in a further 30” down, keeping Yellow, but losing 27” of his overall lead to the second-placed Welshman, a situation that could have turned much, much worse had it not been for the deep character and iron will that defines him.
Thibaut Pino moves up into 4th overall (without the wind stage to Albi he’s be in second by 10”…) with Thomas, Kruijswijk, Bernal and Buchmann all clustered in the 2’14” that separates the top six.
Tomorrow’s stage, an unusual start and finish in the same city of Nîmes, will be one for the sprinters, thankfully for the racers although hot, the fierce winds of the region are forecast to be calm, allowing this exhausted peloton to ease into the terrible days ahead.
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