Resisting with a breath the return of the unleashed pack, the Dane Kasper Asgreen freed his Soudal-Quick Step team in the Tour de France by winning the 18e stage Thursday in Bourg-en-Bresse.
In the eternal game of cat and mouse, the cornerstone of cycling, it is for once the mouse who has won, a rare pleasure, especially in this Grande Boucle padlocked by the main teams.
Leaving with the Norwegian Jonas Abrahamsen and the Belgian Victor Campenaerts, the Dane was the lucky one of an escapade which never took more than 1 minute 20 seconds in advance, even when it received the reinforcement of the Dutchman Pascal Eenkhoorn in the last fifty kilometers.
Generally, such a lead is very insufficient against a peloton launched at full speed.
But not this time.
Driving as if their lives depended on it, the four men avoided the trap of observing each other too much in the final to keep a few meters ahead of the peloton in which the teammates of the future winner, Julian Alaphilippe and Tim Declercq in the lead, did everything to disrupt the pursuit by inserting themselves, like old veterans, in the middle of the teams of sprinters.
“Honestly the situation was not ideal, it would have been better to start with six or seven riders. But I believed in it all the way,” Asgreen commented.
Winner of the Tour of Flanders in 2021, the Dane marks with this first victory on the Tour his return to the fore after a very difficult year, undermined by injuries.
” I’m back “
“The period following my retirement last year on the Tour (due to a knee injury) was very complicated, said the 28-year-old runner. This victory is for all the people who helped me find my level. Today I feel like I’m back where I belong. »
It is also a release for his team which, apart from Remco Evenepoel’s victory in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, missed its classics campaign and had not yet won the Tour de France this year.
On the morning of the 18e stage, it was thus necessary to go back to 2012, the year when Quick-Step had remained “fanny”, to find traces of a Tour where the formation of Patrick Lefevere had not yet raised their arms at this stage of the race.
A disaster for such an armada.
“It’s been I don’t know how many years since we left the Tour without success, I’m very happy that we don’t interrupt the series”, commented Asgreen.
“A very difficult Tour for us”
The abandonment of sprinter Fabio Jakobsen, who was never able to recover from his fall in Nogaro, deprived the team of its trump card and Julian Alaphilippe was never able to play for the win despite great activity up front.
“I’m just super happy for Asgreen, for us. It’s been a very difficult Tour for us since the start, ”commented the Frenchman who fell into the arms of the management on arrival.
The relief was also palpable on the bus where screams accompanied the entry one by one of the runners. “It’s a great victory, it’s good for the morale of the team”, slipped Rémi Cavagna, another member of the Belgian team who knew how to turn his back before this success on this stage that Asgreen says he “checked”.
“I’m happy for Kasper after everything he’s been through in recent months”, commented his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard who kept the yellow jersey at the end of this day of respite for the favorites the day after the last stage in the Alps where he had definitely knocked out the Tour.
Three days before the finish in Paris, Vingegaard retains a 7:35 minute lead in the general classification over the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar and will, barring an accident, win his second Tour de France on Sunday on the Champs-Élysées.