Physical Sprinting
The peloton took it fairly easy on yesterday’s Stage 11 to Poitiers, the flat racecourse and lack of wind ensured a sprint finish and with nine days of climbing ahead of them everyone was content to give the sprinters their day. The fast men didn’t disappoint, treating us to a breathtaking finish.
The race really only began in earnest a mere 10-kilometers to go, the Deceuninck-Quickstep boys had controlled things up till then protecting their Green Jersey Sam Bennett. Julian Alaphilippe, still looking for his place in this Tour, gave a final big effort for the team before peeling off. He’s waiting for a personal card to play in the days ahead. Oddly missing from the team battles in this short but brilliantly high-speed finale was the young Sunweb team which had been so good in the sprints up till yesterday, perhaps the Tour is grinding down their still-developing legs. No one team, in this climbing-designed Tour with appropriate team make ups, has been able so far to really mount a proper lead-out train, and so it was yesterday especially after Peter Sagan’s teammate, the Austrian Lukas Pöstlberger launched a solo attack with six kilometers to go, immediately and surprisingly joined by two of Sam Bennett’s key support men, Bob Jungels and Kasper Asgreen. The trio forced the Belgian Lotto-Soudal team of double stage winner Caleb Ewan to chase, while Sagan and Bennett waited in the wheels for the next round of their Green Jersey fight.
Caleb Ewan is an acrobatic sprinter who always waits for the very last possible moment to come out of the slipstream of the riders ahead, “off the wheels” as we say in cycling, slipping through holes that no one else can, treating the riders in front as flags in a slalom ski race. Yesterday, as the peloton roared into Poitiers and entered the Final Kilometer, Ewan found himself too close to the front and simply backed off his speed, dropping back into about 15th position. Up front, out of the slicing and dicing of the sprinters and their final lead-out men, Wout van Aert launched his sprint – early - while Bennett, to his left, hesitated, looking to his right to gauge the position of now arch-rival Sagan, also calculating how long he could hold off Ewan who was slaloming up from somewhere behind. Bennett only really committed to the sprint when Sagan launched behind van Aert and began drag racing the Slovak, which is when it all intensified.
Wout van Aert is a clean, safe sprinter (of course that is a relative measure in this cut-throat discipline) and when he started his sprint, slamming to the righthand side of the road as they all did, he left small space between himself and the barricades. Sagan who actually looked the fastest of them all, was committed to the far right and squeezed in between van Aert and the fences, into a too-small space which he enlarged, at 45-mph, with shove of his shoulder into van Aerts side, moving the Belgian to the left and breaking his momentum. Ewan, like a magic trick, appeared out of nowhere and passed Bennett, the four of them throwing their bikes at the line with Ewan winning by about 10”, if that.
An NFL hit as Sagan, in white, shoves van Aert at 45 mph
Sagan was disqualified from the race for his physical aggression towards van Aert, in a decision, like all sprinting decisions, that was argued from all sides. For me, van Aert started the sprint and since he was in front, it was up to him to decide where he wanted to be in the road. The Belgian was under no obligation to provide Peter Sagan space to pass him, especially since the van Aert held his line and didn’t “close the door” on the Slovak. If you start a sprint from behind, taking advantage of the slipstream of the riders in front, you takes what you gets. Sagan gambled on sneaking through on the right and he endangered the entire peloton by attempting to correct the move with a physical attack. The Commissaires made the right call. I’d like to point out that Caleb Ewan, the one who takes the most risks of anyone in those sprints with his come-from-behind style, always does it in a classy manner, slipping through holes like a ninja, always exhibiting complete control and respect for the safety of his rivals. He’s a marvel to watch.
Sagan’s DQ means that he lost 50 points to Sam Bennett in their battle for the Green Jersey, now sitting a whopping 86 points behind the Irishman with not many chances left in this mountainous Tour to catch back up. (Note the Green Jersey is based on points awarded at stage finishes and on one or two daily, mid-race sprints. Time is of no consequence. The special competition was designed to spice up the race and give the sprinters, who lose chunks of time in the mountains, a race-long objective to chase.) Look for the Hulk to be on the move today, as Stage 12, the longest of the Tour at 218-K, from Chauvigny to Sarran Corrèze, heads south into the old mountains of the Massive-Central. There is one Points Sprint on the day, at Kilometer-51, so look for an explosive start as Sagan needs to grab each and every point he can find between here and Paris. There are four categorized mountains to climb – in addition to the constant ups and downs of the region – all in the final 100-K of the stage, small mountains that a Peter Sagan can get over, so Bennett had better tighten up his shoes for another tough day at the office.
\The Polka-Dot Climber’s jersey is in play today too, with leader Benoît Cosnefroy, wearing Polka-Dot since Stage 2, holding a five-point lead over AG2R teammate Nans Peters and another five over someone I expect to see today, young Swiss Marc Hirschi currently in third in the special competition. This is a day for who the French term, the “Baroudeurs” or searchers of adventure, the ones who try their hand to see what can happen. Look for breakaways but also keep an eye on fights for the Green and Polka-Dot jerseys. They are the theme of the day.