Less than two weeks away from the Tour de France start in Bilbao, but with riders coming down from the recent drama (Gino Mäder’s tragic death, Tour de Suisse, Dauphiné) and largely heading home to fight for fancy national flag jerseys, it’s a bit of a lull before the déluge of Tour media to begin no later than next Monday. To fill the time, let me toss out a few topics.
What Are You Gaunna Du?
If you watched the Nextflix Tour de France: Au Coeur du Peloton (which does not translate to “unchained”), then you saw how the show — notably a French production — hyped the efforts of David Gaudu of Groupama-FDJ to grab the third podium place in Paris last year. You might even have detected the absurd “drama” we were treated to when Gaudu, who started the final mountain stage of the Tour an almost insurmountable 3:01 behind Geraint Thomas of INEOS for that third spot, raced back up to catch Thomas before the final kilometer!! Thereby clinching his place… still 3:01 behind Thomas!! It was an experience I will never forget, especially after Gaudu blew a gasket in the time trial and shipped another three minutes and would have been looking over his shoulder to see if his fourth place were in jeopardy, had his closest pursuers not have been even worse against the watch.
Photo by ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images
Anyway, while almost no one alive thinks Gaudu will find some nine-to-eleven minutes where he can make up his gap to the leaders, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar, who are two healthy campaigns away from locking up those spots (in either order) again, there is a rather entertaining question out there as to who will join the two recent winners on the podium in Paris this time. Particularly since a Frenchman is involved, and the racing for third thing, not always de rigeur at the Tour, will be very real this time around.
By dint of basic math, Gaudu comes in as the presumptive favorite to ascend to the podium, joining Jicé Péraud and Romain Bardet on the 21st century Legión d’Honneur — just subtract the absent Thomas, who cashed in his chips at the Giro d’Italia, and the pathway is cleared for the new Best of the Rest. Gaudu, for his part, kinda-sorta looks like he’s positioned to defend his place, although it’s not without red flags. His performance at the Dauphiné was somewhere between forgettable and…
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