Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show.
Coming up this week, we analyse an enthralling 2nd week of the Tour de France which has left
us no clearer as to who the final winner will be in Paris.
We’ve also got La Course by Le Tour de France, and some potentially big news for women’s
cycling.
We shall start with the Tour de France though, where we have had another absolutely brilliant
week of racing.
It’s setting itself up to be one of the most exciting editions of the race in decades,
because, with just 6 days to go, nobody really has a clue who is going to win.
Don’t forget that if you want to catch up on any particular stage, we have highlights
of them all on GCN Racing, so make sure you subscribe to that if you haven’t done so
already, and click on the bell icon too so that you receive a notification every time
we upload a video.
But, to recap very quickly since our last racing news show, Wout van Aert won stage
10 after a tough day in the saddle which saw some of the key contenders lose 1 minute and
40 seconds in crosswinds, amongst them Thibaut Pinot.
Caleb Ewan took what was clearly an emotional win on stage 11, managing to get round Dylan
Groenewegen in what was a very tight finish.
Simon Yates made the most of the freedom he was allowed by his team, by winning into Bagneres
to Biggorre on stage 12, whilst Julien Alaphilippe made the most of his current form, by taking
a surprise win in the time trial on stage 13 in Pau.
Which, for the first time since this race began, rang alarm bells amongst the other
contenders, who until that point, had always made the assumption that Alaphilippe would
eventually crack.
Cracking slightly the next day up the Tourmalet was Geraint Thomas himself - a big surprise
given how strong he’d looked on La Planche des Belles Filles.
He did well to limit his losses, just 36 seconds in the end, but, it gave renewed hope and
enthusiasm to his rivals, and in particular Thibaut Pinot, who won the stage, much to
the delight of French fans.
And much to the delight of team principal Marc Madiot, obviously:
The whole of the French public, in fact, had plenty to cheer for.
Not only did Alaphilippe not crack that day, he came 2nd, increasing his advantage at the
top of the GC to over 2 minutes, and proving beyond all doubt that he CAN compete over
2000m above sea level.
But, cracks did start to show, finally, yesterday.
In trying to follow Pinot, Alaphilippe went deep, and started going backwards, conceding
1 minute 16 seconds to Pinot, and 27 seconds to Geraint Thomas.
And so, this is how the top 10 on general classification now looks on the final rest
day: Julian Alaphlippe still in yellow, but by
just 1 minute 35 from Thomas, whilst there are only 39 seconds separating Thomas in 2nd,
and Buchmann in 6th.
Which means there is everything still to play for over the final week of the race.
I mean yes, we have had closer Tours de France in recent years.
For example, the top 6 on GC are currently separated by 2 minutes and 14 seconds, but
just two years ago, in 2017, the top 6 were separated by just 1 minute 17 seconds.
However, the big difference back then was that Chris Froome was leading, and didn’t
really look like he was going to relinquish that lead.
Now, though, Alaphilippe looks as though he might be starting to pay for his efforts of
the first two weeks.
So, we have a race leader potentially on the decline, we have Thomas and Kruijswijk who’ve
basically been treading water, and then we have Pinot, Bernal, Buchmann and Landa all
on the rise.
Basically, all the stars are aligning to set up what should be the most exciting final
week we’ve seen for an entire generation, or two.
I mean don’t forget, we have that trio of mountain stages between Thursday and Saturday,
including 6 passes of over 2000m, and a final mountain top finish on Saturday, up Val Thorens,
that is over 2700m above sea level.
Really, anything can still happen, and if the rest of this Tour is anything to go by,
it probably will.
So what is it that has made this Tour so close, and so exciting?
Well, it’s pretty simple isn’t it, we haven’t had one dominant rider, or team.
The absence of Chris Froome is without doubt, a big factor, but even the rest of Team Ineos
haven’t looked as strong as in recent years.
But is it just that, or have the other riders and teams upped their game?
I personally feel it’s a bit of both, certainly Pinot is on the form of his life, and Thomas
isn’t quite the rider he was this time last year, but whatever it is, it’s making for
a race that you simply cannot take your eyes off.
We’ve also had some high profile exits over the past week - van Aert clipped a barrier
in the time trial and sustained a large gash to the upper thigh, for which he will be in
hospital for a few days.
Thankfully it wasn’t worse, though - it certainly looked like it could have been when
we saw the slow motion replays.
The other, for very different reasons, was Rohan Dennis.
In fact, we still don’t really know why he retired from the race.
Midway through stage 12, he pulled up at the feedzone and decided to call it quits.
Plenty of rumours have surfaced since, but all I want to say is that I hope Rohan is
OK.
Other riders, meanwhile, have got through, but have clearly suffered, a lot.
We don’t often get to see how hard it is for the sprinters to get through the mountains,
but this clip of Jens Debuscherre finishing the Tourmalet stage highlights just how deep
they sometimes have to dig to get inside the time limit.
On the other hand, Peter Sagan is just so bloomin’ talented that he’s able to treat
the whole thing like a bit of a game.
In other small bits of news from the week, there was a great ride by Jumbo Visma on stage
14 - the whole team riding exceptionally well for Steven Kruijswijk, but they also had a
little help from Wout van Aert, from his hospital bed:
These are the texts he was sending to Directeur Sportif Grischa Niermann to keep him updated
as to what was going on.
How cool is that?!
I was also asking myself yesterday whether Geraint Thomas is too polite for his own good
- he said he had to sit on Alaphilippe when he caught him yesterday because Bernal was
up the road.
And yes, that’s the obvious tactic, but I just can’t imagine any other reigning
Tour de France champion being quite so selfless - that, to me, was the mark of a just being
a nice bloke.
And actually, given how polite Thomas is, it’s disappointing to hear that he’s still
being boo’d by roadside……..fans, for want of a better word.
Having done his work at the front, Jumbo Visma’s George Bennett rode briefly with Thomas on
the Col du Tourmalet, and later expressed his disappointment on twitter.
The basic gist of it was that he was sad to see some absolute masturbaters at the side
of the road booing Geraint.
To which Geraint replied, “I think they were booing at you mate.”
Always polite and always with a sense of humour.
Before I finish with the Tour, I know that many of you have been a bit disgruntled at
the lack of mentions that we’ve given Emmannuel Buchmann on the run up to and during this
Tour.
And you are absolutely right, so, here is an entire segment dedicated to him.
Buchmann currently lies in 6th place on GC, 2 minutes and 17 seconds behind Alaphilippe,
but only 39 seconds behind Geraint Thomas.
Buchmann is 26 Years old, and comes from Ravensberg in South West Germany.
He turned pro in 2015 at the age of 22 with Bora Argon 18, and it was then that he first
came into my consciousness as he won the German national championships that same year.
That remained his only professional win until this year, where he has won 2 races, including
a stage of the Tour of the Basque Country.
This is his 4th participation at the Tour, his previous best result overall was 15th,
2 years ago, but he did come 12th at the Vuelta last year.
Anyway, he’s really gone up another level, and with the way he’s climbing, he’s a
genuine contender for the podium.
If he makes it, he’ll be the first German podium finisher at the Tour since Andreas
Kloden, 13 years ago.
Right, let us know who your picks are for the final podium in Paris in the comments
section below.
My prediction is as it was before the start, Egan Bernal for the win.
And I think it’ll be Thibaut Pinot in 2nd, and Steven Kruijswijk in 3rd.
Onto La Course by Le Tour de France now which took place last Friday in Pau, on a course
very similar to the men’s Time Trial.
An 11 rider group that went clear early was pulled back by the acceleration of Annemiek
van Vleuten on the third ascent of the Cote de Gelos, by which point the peloton was already
down to around 50 riders.
Many of the favourites tried their hand at various points in the race, but the big move
came from Mitchelton Scott’s Amanda Spratt.
The Australian attacked a small group and went solo with 25kms still remaining, and
carved out an advantage of over 30 seconds.
And for a long time, the race hung in the balance, right down to the last few hundred
metres in fact, when Marianne Vos let off the biggest wattage bazooka I’ve seen in
a long time.
Everybody knew what she was about to do, but nobody could do anything about it.
As soon as she accelerated on the short but steep climb near the finish, she gapped the
rest and passed Spratt at twice the speed.
It was a display of dominance that we were used to seeing from Vos a few years ago, and
it appears from her form recently, with this win, plus 4 stage wins at the Giro Rosa, that
she’s very much back to her best.
Especially when you consider that, according to Lukas Knofler, Vos’s time for the final
kilometre was just 2 seconds slower than Alaphilippe on his time trial bike, and we all saw just
how quickly he sprinted up that steep climb near the finish.
Impressive stuff.
I think I know which two riders are favourites for the World Champs in Yorkshire this year……
There was also a glimpse of some potentially good news for women’s cycling that same
day.
A senior ASO official told Reuters that they were setting up a group dedicated to women’s
cycling, and that, in addition the Fleche Wallonne, Liege and La Course, they would
also be launching a women’s race that will be the equivalent to the biggest race in men’s
cycling, which is of course the Tour de France.
More details than that, we weren’t given, but it certainly sounds very positive, especially
when you consider that, only recently, ASO seemed to be considering demoting Fleche and
Liege from the WorldTour so that they didn’t have to provide live TV coverage, and that
La Course has gone down from three days to one.
Let’s hope they are true to their word, because that would be brilliant news.
Right, that’s all for this week, we will of course be back next week with a round up
of everything that happened.
Don’t forget to let us know your podium predictions in the comments section below,
and that you can catch daily highlights of the race over on GCN Racing.
Before then, if you’re into your data, as I am, you might want to watch this next video.
I spent a day with the people from NTT and Dimension Data to see how they are bringing
us closer to the Tour de France than ever before.
You can find that video just here.