Unto The Breach
Richard Carapaz is throwing even more confusion into Team Ineos’s discussions over Egan Bernal’s plight. The Ecuadorian has jumped, for the second day in a row, directly into the team’s power vacuum by displaying leadership and strength, the same qualities that led to his fine 2019 Giro d’Italia victory. The understudy wants the lead role.
Carapaz, Julian Alaphilippe, Gorka Izagirre (Astana), Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) and Tuesday’s young hero, Lennard Kämna found themselves in back in front. Their break had six-minutes on the field at the base of the penultimate climb, the 17-kilometer, 8.4% average gradient Col de la Madeleine, but behind in the Yellow Jersey group, somewhat inexplicably, the Bahrain McLaren team decided to try and smash the race for their leader Mikel Landa, putting their best men on the front and giving the Jumbo-Visma a free ride to the top. The pressure seemed to doom the break as their lead was reduced to 1’22” by the summit with the insane finishing Col du Loz still to come.
Julian Alaphilippe is loved throughout the world. I have a Colombian friend named Hector who manages a parking garage on 77th St., and whenever back in the old neighborhood I stop by and talk cycling with him. Yesterday, the first words out of his mouth were not about the Colombians but instead all about Alaphilippe. The Frenchman has gone through so much this season, from recurring mechanical issues to losing the Yellow Jersey over a banality, yet no matter what, he keeps fighting back in exciting ways. That disco ball of his lit up on the descent of the Madeleine where he put on a crazy show for us all, dropping everyone, slaloming through one particular set of switchbacks like I’ve never seen, charging ahead in his irrepressible manner. The break, back together minus Kämna, confronted the final, 21.5-kilometer Col du Loz where Alaphilippe, as he’s been doing this Tour, looked like a million-bucks until he suddenly didn’t and cracked, coming almost to a standstill. Which will make him even more popular. He provided us with fantastic entertainment, sang a beautiful aria for the opera, left everyone talking and kept his star shining bright.
It was on that Col du Loz that Richard Carapaz showed just why he is a Grand Tour winner. The Ecuadorian, who actually has a very similar punchy style to Alaphilippe’s – I now want to see Carapaz in the Ardennes Classics, he can handle the cold – was on his own with 10-k to the top, only 33” ahead of the charging Yellow Jersey group. He dug in, and at the 5.5-k mark, he’d pulled his gap out to 40” in a show of fantastic fighting spirit, clawing yet another two-seconds before the crazy, final 3-k stretch of the climb was reached.
Today’s bicycle racers are not paid nearly enough to suffer the kind of abuse inflicted by that final climb, their salaries should be at least quadrupled. I’m completely serious here, they don’t make very much as it is. Finishing at 2,304 meters (7,550’) with the final three-kilometers on a specially constructed just for the occasion bike path, with sections of 24%, provided incredible television, but was overly extreme for my tastes. Carapaz, after 150-k of breakaway, was finally caught on the path, but held on to finish 11th on the day and is sitting 13th overall after having given so much of himself to Bernal’s cause. He’s now forced Team Ineos management to reassess his role in the team.
I talk a lot about the “young riders” but please keep in mind that for me Alaphilippe is the oldest of that new generation, his quick style influencing countless racers. Miguel Angel Lopez, the 26-year old Colombian winner of the day, is another “young rider” for me, one who has clearly looked to the Frenchman for inspiration. Like Alaphilippe, Lopez has an explosively quick jump (acceleration) which we saw in the Yellow Jersey fight on Tuesday when he sprang away from them all with a lightning fast jump that was only shut down right at the top. Yesterday, with a stage to win and a chance to move up into the podium, Superman (he was attacked by bike thieves as a boy and even though they were knifing him, he held on to his precious machine – thus the nickname) made sure his move would work this time, dominating the climb, finally shaking free with a second jump to win with 15” over the Yellow Jersey Primôz Roglič. Lopez moved up onto the podium with that effort, and is now sitting third at 1’26” but only 29” behind second place Tadej Pogačar. Lopez is pedaling with such agility these days that I’m seeing an excellent time trial for him on Saturday on that uphill course.
Roglič finally slapped young puppy Pogačar on the nose and showed himself as the strongest man in the race, taking 15” out of the White Jersey - who is in Polka-Dot too – by the top. Special kudos to American Sepp Kuss, saved just for this occasion and who came through like a champ, acting the perfect shepherd for his leader and who seemed right at home way up there in the sky. And, finally, the old fox Alejandro Valverde, at 40, moved into the top 10 overall in what may very well be his final Tour.
Today is the final one in the Alps, the final chance for many to get something out of this Tour, and with the levels of fatigue so high in this extreme version of cycling, surprises can still be in store.