Making Points
Sam Bennett, the Irish Champion, showed us yesterday that he’s a real Green Jersey and not “just” a sprinter. The final road stage of the Alps, a final opportunity for the strong to salvage their Tour, flew uphill right from the start, the field splitting in two under the pressure. In front, with all of the climbers and baroudeurs and with Peter Sagan glued to his wheel was Bennett, a man on whom the odds had been laid as to whether or not he’d make it through the Alps to finish in Paris. Bennett easily won the Intermediate Sprint of the day beating Matteo Trentin and Sagan, taking the 20 points and increasing his lead to 52 points over Sagan with Trentin a further 11 points behind. Bennett needs to stay hyper-aware on today’s lumpy stage from Bourge-en-Bresse to Champagnole, Sagan’s last chance to crack open this Green Jersey competition. The Slovak’s legs just don’t seem to be sprinting that well, pretty much eliminating a last stand on the Champs-Élysées.
Marc Hirschi broke all of our hearts yesterday, the just turned 22-year old Swiss was on a grand day, one that promised all sorts of action and entertainment but was sadly done in by the exuberances of youth. Within the Bennet group were four Ineos racers, the team reborn by the performances of Richard Carapaz, who were putting pressure on the 32-man group as it made its way further into the mountains. Carapaz and Hirschi - the Swiss had been at the front of the peloton from the start probing for an opening - were in a fight for the Polka-Dot jersey on a points-filled day of five mountain passes, a fight that Hirschi was winning with ease. He beat Carapaz at the top of the first three mountains, the 1968-meter Cormet de Rosland, the Cat 3 climb that followed, taking the 1487-meter Col des Saisies with a terrific sprint. If you want to see what a really quick sprinter looks like, find the footage of that last climb, shot from behind by the TV bike. You can really see Hirschi’s whippet-like speed. It was on the descent of the Saisies that Hirschi over-cooked into a turn and dumped at 90kph or so. There was some mention in the press of “new tires” which makes no sense to me as the team uses the Conti Pro Ltd tubulars, special ones made just for the pros with latex tubes. Maybe they put on 28mm for the gravel section? Not sure, but it really looked as though he just went in too hot for a major self-goal.
By that point the break had been whittled down to just four, and with Hirschi on the ground, the Ineos duo of Carapaz and the rock of that team, former World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski along with Bahrain-McLaren’s Pello Bilbao, the brave Spaniard with the bizarre pedaling style, couldn’t get away fast enough. “Too bad kid” was about as much sentiment as you were going to get out of the now trio. Hirschi, in yet another sign of his promise, got back up, jumped on his machine and chased into a headwind for the rest of the race, eventually being absorbed by the Yellow Jersey group, finishing 13th on the day. But oh, what could have been. The Ineos would have had to get rid of the Swiss, they would have had to jump, attack, throw everything they had at him. It would have made for the most remarkable racing. Once he was gone and with Bilabao dropping off as part of a grand Bahrain-McLaren scheme the duo rode to the finish as brothers, giving Kwia his first-ever Tour stage win after years and years in the trenches, with Carapaz putting on the Polka-Dot and cementing his new leadership role in the team. He’s got them believing in him now, and to have that pack of hounds at your disposal is his biggest win of the Tour.
I am so happy to eat my words about Mikel Landa and his Bahrain-McLaren team strategy. When the team began to light up the climbs on Wednesday, starting with their sprinter Sonny Colbrelli – that was some sight, his big sprinter thighs chugging that heavy body up the climb as fast as he did – continuing the team onslaught up to the point that Landa folded, we all thought, “Well, it was a good try but he really doesn’t have it.” But yesterday, with refined tactics, they went right back at it, putting on a great show with Bilbao and the excellent Damiano Caruso working with Landa to eliminate Rigoberto Uran and Adam Yates. This is Landa’s first year with the team, they’ve barely raced together and are still learning how to work together. The team has definitely upped the Spaniard’s confidence, his solo move on the final was powerful and caused all sorts of damage behind. There’s more to come from them, not in this Tour, but in future races. Wonder if Landa will race the Vuelta in this condensed season?
Richie Porte developed a legion of fans yesterday, puncturing on the gravel section at the top of the final climb, and since – I believe I have this correct – the Mavic Neutral Support doesn’t carry disc wheels (?) he had to wait ages for his Trek-Segafredo team car for a new bike. His chase back to the front was pure effort, effort at the end of a wildly exhausting Tour, at the end of a chain of mountain passes. It was in his chase that we saw the true heroism of a Tour de France racer. Porte saved his fourth place overall, the best Tour performance of his career so far.
In the end, Primôz Roglič showed everyone that he is the Yellow Jersey and no one else. At the top of the final climb, where that gravel road awaited, Roglič went to the front and went full gas, gagging all the favorites who hanging on for dear life. It was a show of sheer force, a psychological blow to them all. When at the end, behind the Ineos duo, the group came to the finish with the all-important bonus seconds still available for third place on the day, Wout van Aert, who had come back to the front with Porte, did the sprint, so well that it was somewhat hilarious, seeing him take 100-meters out of the climbers in a 200-meter effort. Roglič beat Tadey Pogačar for fourth, cementing the Jumbo-Visma domination of the day.
Today is the very last chance for anyone who is not a pure sprinter, they’ll be crazy at the start, as they’ve been in every stage of this Tour, and a day of wide-open racing awaits us on this final road stage of the Tour de France.