The Hulk Awakens — John Eustice

Bora-Hansgrohe, with Peter Sagan sitting 5th, destroy the peloton

Great champions have great egos and woe to those who challenge let alone try and demean them. The muscular Slovak, aka “The Hulk” due to his build and fondness for green – he’s won the Green Sprinter jersey at the Tour for seven consecutive years not to mention his three consecutive World Championships – has been the subject of doubt this year. “He’s not training, this is his 12th year in the pros and he’s tired of racing, no longer has the dedication to perform…” The losing of his cherished Green Jersey to Sam Bennett three days ago, seeing the Irishman’s green-trimmed racing bicycle, must have set off deep rumblings of rage inside. Yesterday when dawn broke and the weather announced strong-enough winds, the Hulk must have licked his lips.

All it took was a small, Category-3 climb right at the beginning of the stage for the Hulk to set things right. Defying his Bora-Hansgohe team director orders, Sagan ordered his entire team to the front, and with young Benoît Cosnefroy, the Mountains Classification leader racing the climb flat out in the search for more points all the while serving as a rabbit for Sagan’s team to chase, the Bora’s exploded the field into pieces. Caleb Ewan, Andre Griepel, the underwhelming and seemingly overweight World Champion Mads Pedersen along with a long line of what my old team director Jean de Gribaldy used to term, “The fat asses” – body shaming remains a great cycling tradition – all blew off the back, their day over almost before it had started. Only Bennett of the sprinters made it into the second chasing group behind the Bora’s, and with his Deceuninck-Quickstep horses Tim Declercq and Kasper Asgreen shepherding him, closed the gap on the second climb, getting close enough that Bennett saw fit to give the moto-camera a cocky thumbs-up. I moaned out loud when I saw that because he clearly wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough. Because when the climb rose above the tree lines and that wind blew hard on the side of the now-exposed peloton like a punch to the ribs, the Bora’s turned the screws again and nailed it on the front. You could see riders twisting into contortions, hugging the right side of the road, groups getting smashed and pummeled into pieces all over the climb. Bennett’s horses, feeling the effects of having spent so much time and energy defending Julian Alaphilippe’s Yellow Jersey during the week, simply no longer had the strength to make the difference. Sam Bennett could only watch as his Green Jersey dream disappeared up the road.

The Bora-Hansgrohe’s kept it up all day, raging on the front. Sagan got his jersey back by finishing second on the only special sprint of the day, then turned his attention to the stage win, riding his team to exhaustion without an ounce of concern of what the efforts would mean for their man Emanuel Buchmann’s podium goals and the mountains of this weekend. It’s Sagan’s team, that certainly is clear.

Thomas DeGendt attempted one of his patented solo moves once the race stabilized, but the cross-tail wind speeds were just too high for him to get any daylight and he was caught just outside of Castres where Team Ineos reminded everyone just who they in fact are. The Ineos took command of the front upon entering the traffic-circle laden, narrow streets of the town, and went full gas led by former World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski, stretching the field out into a single, high-speed line before exiting onto the side-wind exposed, flat D112 and the 43-kilometer run-in to Lavaur. A spectacular echelon battle was launched, this one with the aim of damaging the podium ambitions of their rivals with young Slovenian Tadej Pogačar, Mikel Landa and Richie Porte falling victims to the trap, losing 1’21” to the front group. It was a beautiful, surgical strike on the part of Ineos. Egan Bernal made sure that everyone saw him floating on the front of the attack, looking around as if to say; “That all you got?” The wars are heating up.

Sagan’s race-long efforts and using of his team came to naught as a mechanical incident ruined his sprint, finishing out of the money yet back in Green. Wout van Aert who was, as always, a key player in protecting their leader Primož Roglič from the wind, was released from team duties last-minute and promptly won the stage in his matter-of-fact manner. An astounding man who the fans are gushing over, the latest being that he reminds the French of a 1950’s American movie star, a Gary Cooper of the bicycle.

We’re in the Pyrenees today and tomorrow with a different scenarios than expected. Pogačar, Landa and Porte now need attack their way back into contention and the prediction of controlled racing may turn into something completely different. I’m seeing a very good Nairo Quintana, finally being treated by his French Arkea-Samsic team as the deity (in Colombia he’s nothing short of) that he is and feeling happy. Julian Alaphilippe will be of great interest to watch this weekend, or anytime for that matter, and Bernal, with the morale of yesterday’s coup de force, is feeling cocky. All of the French podium contenders, Thibault Pino, the excellent Guillaume Martin – currently a discreet third overall, and Romain Bardet are sitting pretty. The weather is currently beautiful, the TV pictures should equally so. Grand spectacle awaits.