The Tour so Far

I was flying home from Greece on Sunday, having only heard bits and pieces about the opening stage of the Tour in Florence the day before. Just down from me was an obvious cyclist, watching a mix of live Tour coverage and the Netflix show on his tablet. Finally, I asked him, “You a Tour fan?” “Oh yes!”, he responded, “Yesterday was a great stage, so hard, so much climbing, the riders were really put to their absolute limits.” I had sense that he was a bit too happy about the riders’ state of pain, that maybe he was one of those that sort of feels that racers need to be constantly punished. You know the type. “Well,” I said, “I heard that Cavendish was incredibly brave yesterday, and that he’s alive to fight another day.” (Man was English so..) This is where things went south. “He’s too old! Should not be in the Tour, it’s a farce,” he launched, quite heatedly. “He’s 38”, I reasoned. “39!” He spat back, continuing, “Cav jeopardized his entire team yesterday by making them wait for him – (by now I’ve started internalizing, so deep inside I’m thinking, “I know they made it in under the time limit so maybe the Astana simply know what they are doing.”). His rant continued: “It’s selfish, ego run amok, he’s taken the place of a better rider, it’s nothing but a cheap publicity stunt!” “Enjoy the rest of the Tour,” I ended, thinking that there were still three full weeks of hatred content for him to mine.

So yesterday, when Mark Cavendish, showing the experience and rage of an old champion, in the final kilometer of the race, bounced Phil Bahaus and Fernando Gaviria off of Jasper Philipsen’s wheel to beat the best sprinters in the world, winning his 35th career Tour de France stage and claiming the record from Eddy Merckx, I could only think of that ponce on the plane and how miserable he must now be. For that alone, I will always love the Cav.

The Grand Depart in Italy was a great success by all accounts. Explosive racing, plot lines already determined, fantastic crowds and of course, Italy itself, that most magical place. Romain Bardet, who, in his final year of racing has decided that he was never a general classification rider but rather a stage chaser, took full advantage of this new politic on Stage One to bridge alone from the suffering field up to the breakaway, join his young Dutch teammate Frank van den Broek, who then buried himself to bring victory, and the first Yellow Jersey of the Tour, to the Frenchman. The brutality of that opening stage claimed many victims, riders were scattered across the countryside, groups coming in from 18:00 to 39:00 down.

The FDJ team’s General Classification strategy went right out the back window so far down were all their top riders, which, interestingly, was greeted with some joy by members of the French press: “Good! They are now so far down that they’ll have to chase stages and really race. We won’t have to endure the misery of following a French racer who is only trying to move from 17th to 15th overall as we have in the past.”

Young Norman talent Kèvin Vauquelin brought more joy to the French with his fine win in Bologna, confirming his worth after his second place in La Flèche Wallonne. Behind Vauquelin, who won from a breakaway, all eyes were on the first real fight among the favorites that would take place on the famed San Luca climb. Has Jonas Vingegaard recovered from his terrible injuries? Same question to Belgian star Remco Evenepoel. Is Tadej Pogačar simply untouchable?

UAE Team Emirates started this Tour with one simple tactic: To put Jonas Vingegaard to the sword on the opening, historically difficulty stages. His form was unknown, but chances were that he was still far from top condition and the idea was to get him on the ropes before he could improve later in the race. Knock him out in the early rounds. Problem is, Vingegaard is a great champion, and he’s still standing. Bleeding a bit as his 50” down show, but still standing. He could follow Pogačar on the San Luca climb, almost go the top of the Galibier climb with him, but not quite, yet is sitting comfortably in third overall. The back and forth between the Dane, Evenepoel and Primoz Rogic – slightly down in form so far - has been, and will continue to be, great to watch.

Pogačar, now in Yellow, is doing his thing, winning any and everything he can. However, the Tour is long, he bears the publicity duties of wearing Yellow (at least an extra 1.5-hours a day of interviews, etc.,) the racing very hard. Especially since so many good riders were put out of the race for the General Classification on the first day and will now contribute to the daily waves of attackers, all trying to salvage their Tours with a stage win. It’ll be relentless and Tadej’s team has the responsibility to control it all. It’s going to take deep, deep endurance to win this Tour, and I feel there are surprises in store for us all.