Départ réel! Now it’s really off, the jury car disappears from view and Lidl-Trek immediately reports to the front of the peloton. The blonde locks of Quinn Simmons are not to be missed.
Now still fraternally, but will it stay so pleasant today?
The pace behind the jury car is not yet impressive, so plenty of time to look back at the last time the Tour finished at La Plagne. Do you remember July 24, 2002? It is a day that is etched in the memory of many cycling enthusiasts. Michael Boogerd won the queen stage to La Plagne that day after a solo of more than ninety kilometers. Who will follow in his footsteps in a few hours?
Départ fictif! Here we go! The riders are on their way for the shortened stage to La Plagne.
Did you also find yesterday’s stage a bit of an anticlimax? A tip: pay attention to the battle for third place today. That promises to be exciting. Oscar Onley (📷) is fourth, 22 seconds behind Florian Lipowitz. The rider from Team Picnic PostNL will undoubtedly make a bid for the podium place and thus also directly for the white jersey for the youth classification. By the way, today is Onley’s two hundredth race day for the Dutch team.
Last chance for Vingegaard? ‘Don’t underestimate tomorrow’s stage either’Jonas Vingegaard presented himself in the polka dot jersey to the public in start location Albertville. He spoke briefly about today’s and tomorrow’s stage. “Today will be very tough. The stage is very short and there are many altitude meters.” Whether it is his last chance to achieve something in the general classification? “This is the last real mountain stage, but tomorrow is also tough, so you shouldn’t underestimate that.” Tomorrow there is a transitional stage from Nantua to Pontarlier on the program.
Ben O’Connor has a new picture for under his saddle. He won his second stage victory ever in the Tour de France yesterday with a formidable solo to Col de la Loze.
The Tour de France Femmes also starts tomorrow. Can Demi Vollering take revenge for last year’s Tour defeat? She was then second by only four (!) seconds. In any case, Vollering does not have to expect a spicy duel with SD Worx.
The news about the shortened stage only came out yesterday evening at 10:27 PM, but the Tour organization had been working on this for days. That’s what course builder Thierry Gouvenou tells Sporza. “After all possible dialogues and negotiations, the final decision was only made yesterday evening. That may be late, but exchanges between different parties simply take time. That was the case now too.” Gouvenou says that the farmers are “desperate” because of the virus. “They are afraid that it will spread further and did not want to take any risks by letting the Tour pass here. They asked us to come up with a solution.”
And this is what remains! Still not an easy day, but a lot less heavy. If Jonas Vingegaard was still awake when the news came out, he will have slept less well. The Dane now has fewer kilometers to hurt yellow jersey wearer Tadej Pogacar.
The sprinters probably won’t be too sad about it, because they don’t have to toil as long today. The stage was already not very long (129.9 kilometers) and has now been shortened to 93.1 kilometers. The peloton skips the first two climbs of the original stage: the Côte d’Héry-sur-Ugine (11.3 kilometers at 5.2 percent) and the Col des Saisies (13.8 kilometers at 6.4 percent).
Bonjour! The peloton could sleep in for an hour today or had time for an extra cup of coffee, because the stage starts an hour later than planned. A remarkable and sad reason: due to a virus outbreak among cows, the stage has been shortened. The new start time: 2:30 PM.