After a stifling 15th stage with a thermometer approaching 40°C on the roads of Occitania, the peloton observes a more than deserved day of rest this Monday. The Tour de France is completing a week of racing marked by the heat, the Alps, retirements and above all the change of overall leader. Slovenian Tadej Pogačar, who was believed to be untouchable, lost his yellow jersey to Dane Jonas Vingegaard. Another fact to report, still no French stage victory. Here’s what to remember from this second week.
Testing the Alps
After a first week under the sign of Denmark, the cobblestones of the North and the Super Planche des Belle Filles, the Tour de France entered the hard attack of the Alps. The opportunity for the Dane Magnus Cort Nielsen to shine a little more. The moustachioed, long wearer of the weight jersey, offered himself the luxury of winning the first stage in the Alps in Megève and his second victory in this edition. The Dane unfortunately had to leave the Tour on Sunday after testing positive for Covid-19.
– DAVID PINTENS / BELGA MAG
The now legendary Col du Granon
This 11th stage will go down in the annals of the Tour de France, that’s for sure. And it is to two actors that we owe it: the Jumbo Visma team and the Col du Granon. The team of Jonas Vingegaard, Wout Van Aert Where Primoz Roglic blasted this stage harassing Tadej Pogacar, wearing the yellow jersey today. The Dutch team did not give the Slovenian a second’s respite, a strategy that paid off as Pogačara for the first time showed that he was not invincible and did not have the energy to respond to yet another attack.
At the top of the terrible Granon, the Dane Vingegaard pushed aside all his competitors and managed to outrun Pogačar more than two minutes on the finish line. Jonas Vingegaard, 25, grabbed the yellow jersey that day and hasn’t let go until now.
– Anne-Christine POUJOULAT
Duel Vingegaard – Pogačar in the Pyrenees
Tadej Pogačar has certainly not said his last word. The Slovenian still has it under his belt and will try everything for everything in the Pyrenees. Especially since the two teams are now tied. Pogačar can now only count on five teammates to support him, which has made the job of the Jumbo easier. But since Sunday, the Dutch team has also been the victim of withdrawals: abandonment of Primoz Roglic and of Steven Kruijswijkthe fall of Vingegaard and Tiesj Benoot. But the advantage seems to always be on the Jumbo side, if only for the presence of Wout Van Aertcapable of knocking down the work of multiple teammates single-handedly.
The Pidcock rocket in L’Alpe-d’Huez
A much-awaited stage of this 109th edition of the Tour de France, Alpe d’Huez signed its big comeback this year. And it’s the young Briton Tom Pidcock who knew how to tame the mythical series of laces. Versatile, the Ineos Grenadiers rider impressed on the descents thanks to an impeccable technique, coming to him from his past as an Olympic mountain bike champion and cyclo-cross world champion. Pidcock was controlled at 100km/h on the descent from the Col de la Croix de Fer before winning as the boss at the top of Alpe d’Huez.
– Thomas SAMSON
The peloton suffers from the heat
What we will remember from this second week is also the stifling heat which has battered the peloton. “An oven“, “never had such a hot day“, declared the riders on Sunday evening at the end of the 15th stage between Rodez and Carcassonne. With a thermometer approaching 40°C degrees in the shade, the peloton left feathers during the crossing of the four departments of Occitanie (Aveyron, Tarn, Haute-Garonne, Aude) for the hottest stage of this Tour according to the weather forecast.
– Tim De Waele
On arrival, the first gesture of the winner of the day, the Belgian Jasper Philipsen, was to spill a bottle of water on his head. He immediately took a second on the back of the neck, sprayed by a hilarious Tadej Pogačar. A few meters away, Wout van Aert, who had just finished a sprint under 37°C, gave his young son a drink. As for Tom Pidcock, he threw himself squarely into the nearest fountain, to cool off, the old fashioned way.
Last chance for a first French victory
Will we be lucky enough to experience a French victory on a stage of this Tour? Nothing is less certain and the more time passes, the more the chances dwindle. Whether Romain Bardet (4th at 3’01”) and david gaudu (8th at 4’24”) are still doing well and fighting for the top 10 of the general classification, it’s dead calm on the side of the victories. We have to go back to 2016 for an edition without victorious French at this stage of the competition (Romain Bardet during the 19th stage in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc).
For the record, only two editions of the Tour de France have not seen any victory for the French, that of 1926 and that of 1999. There have indeed been a few thrilling attempts at breakaways, which usually succeed for the French, but none has succeeded so far. However, France is the country with the most runners at the start (32, ahead of Belgium with 18). This may be one of the consequences of the absence of Julian Alaphilippe this year, who had managed to win a stage in each of the last four editions.
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