What was supposed to be one final chance for the many teams still chasing stage success at this Tour de France today in the Alps instead ended up being yet another victory for Tadej Pogačar.
Though the yellow jersey did keep to his word with regard to not being bothered about chasing the win, declining to deploy his UAE Team Emirates riders at the front of the peloton, instead Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal-Quick Step led the chase. Their pace was not enough to achieve Evenepoel’s aim of putting Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) under pressure, but it did ensure that the breakaway was once again caught by the group of favourites — and thus a fifth triumph for Pogačar, this time almost by accident.
This continues what has been a rough Tour de France for teams hunting success from the breakaway, especially in the mountains. Now, unless someone can mount a big surprise in tomorrow’s final time trial and prevent one of the top GC men from winning, a total of ten teams will leave this Tour de France winless.
Many of those ten teams were on a mission to win the stage today. Above all, Movistar engineered a very promising situation to rescue their race at the last hurdle. Their leader Enric Mas might have had a tough race up until now, falling out of GC contention early and failing to get close to a stage win, but he looked something like his best today. Having gotten into the day’s break he went clear with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) on the final climb, and the two succeeded in putting daylight between themselves and the rest of the breakaway riders.
Image: ASO/Charly Lopez
The pair engaged in an entertaining battle, regularly attacking each other but proving to be evenly matched, with neither managing to go clear. Perhaps they’d have been better off working together, given how they were up against the peloton chasing them as much as they were each other, but in reality they were always unlikely to survive once Soudal-Quick Step set about pacing the peloton. Mas was caught first, and ended up slipping down to finish the stage in fifth. With Oier Lazkano’s bid for the King of the Mountains also unravelling in recent days, Movistar’s Tour is set to end in disappointment.
They weren’t the only winless team to get a man in the day’s break. Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Bruno Armirail did a good job of being one of the three riders (along with Mas and Visma-Lease a Bike’s Wilco Kelderman) to go clear initially….