After coming runner-up and fourth in last year’s Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italian respectively, Ben O’Connor’s fourth Tour de France hadn’t been great until Thursday’s queen stage. At the top of Col de la Loze, the purple-clad Australian earned his first win for Jayco-AlUla, his second Tour triumph and fourth Grand Tour stage victory. He also plucked the Souvenir Henri Desgrange and moved up to 10th on GC. Yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar caught everything Jonas Vingegaard threw at him.
The GC Situation Overnight
Lipowitz’s podium and white jersey had two minutes of buffer from Onley, who would be wary of his fourth dangling only 38 seconds in front of a very consistent Primoz Roglič. Over two weeks the Red Bull Slovenian inched his way from 10th to 5th. In the lower half of the top 10, remarkable Irishman Ben Healy had his sights on Tobias Halland Johannessen’s eighth.
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 61:50:16
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) +4:16
3) Florian Lipowitz (Germany/Red Bull) +9:03
4) Oscar Onley (Australia/Picnic-PostNL) +11:04
5) Primož Roglič (Slovenia/Red Bull) +11:42
6) Kévin Vauquelin (France/Arkea-B&B Hotels) +13:20
The Course
The ascents returned in spades, with three very long HC climbs in the Alps: 21.7-km Col du Glandon, 19.2-km Col de la Madeleine and the summit finish of 26.2-km, 6.5-percent Col de la Loze.
Surely the eighty KOM points would lure Lenny Martinez, who lost the classification lead to the yellow jersey but still wore the dots. Yep, Martinez was part of the escape procession going up the Col du Glandon, along with Roglič, seventh place Felix Gall and Michael Woods. The breakaway was in pieces on its 21 kilometres and not too far ahead of the peloton.
There were a few minutes when Martinez lost contact with the Roglič-Gall group, but he came back, took the stickiest bottle possible and claimed the maximum 20 points. Woods couldn’t hang on and tipped over in a chase group a minute later. The peloton was 2:00 in arrears. On the descent of the Glandon, the yellow jersey group caught Woods.
Just after three-time Vuelta a España runner-up Enric Mas abandoned, Martinez was caught and spat out by the peloton. Now it was Stage 15 winner Thymen Arensman, another habitual escapee, threatening the top of the mountains…
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