Tour de France Stage Zero – Part Three
Welcome to Tour de France Stage Zero, part three. We’re going to chat about what’s happened in the past week, and give our predictions for the final week.
The government has banned gatherings of more than six people, which spells bad news for the Jumbo Visma team on literally every mountain in this year’s tour. It also means that one of our listeners is going to have to wait ten minutes before hitting play.
Pandemic jokes in September. Good lord.
What Happened
Stage 10 – Sam Bennett Cries
The first stage back, Stage 10, was a flat stage that looked geared toward the sprinters. And that’s how it worked out.
Sam Bennett won the stage, exploding with emotion and tears for his first Tour de France victory. After coming second, third, and fourth on earlier stages, the Irishman launched his sprint late, giving Caleb Ewan no opportunity to push past.
“I was waiting to go and thought I was waiting too late, then I went and thought I was it too big a gear.” Well, calm your anxieties, Sam.
The win put him back in the points classification lead, which he’d carry all the way to the final week. And maybe beyond???
Stage 11 – Sagan’s Relegation
Stage 11 had the closest sprint of the Tour.
As the sprinters hit the stage’s final few meters, Peter Sagan burst through the outside, close to the barriers, and used his head and shoulders to push Wout van Aert out of the way. Caleb Ewan was the winner of the close-fought four-way lunge for the line, and while Sagan was second across the line, he was relegated for misconduct.
Using a head or a shoulder to open a gap is part of sprinting, especially when the barriers loom. The ruling is fairly consistent with how the laws of the sport are usually enforced – despite Sagan fans finding rank hypocisy in certain cherry picked examples – but it hardly feels like a very good decision for the stage or the green jersey contest.
Or it does. I don’t know. Whichever side of the fence gets us the most hate mail.
Stage 12 – Hirschi Finally Does It
Marc Hirschi finally took the stage win that’s been eluding him all race, soloing to victory on Stage 12.
It was his third attempt at a solo victory, the first two winning fans’ hearts with agonizingly close losses.
On the longest stage of the race, he finally took the win that he’d been craving for so long.
Stage 13 – Bernal Off the Pace
On Stage 13, any speculation that Egan Bernal and his INEOS team were playing a long tactical game, and that they had a killer hand they were waiting to reveal, turned out to be hollow.
It was Dani Martínez, I’m not saying his middle name this time because I don’t want an explicit tag on Spotify, who won the stage atop the steep slopes of the Puy Mary. He won from the early break, where a back and forth battle between Education First and Bora had broken out in the final hour of racing.
EF won. Martinez beat two Bora riders to take the victory, somewhat embarrassingly for the Bora team.
Behind him, Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar crossed the finish line together, while Egan Bernal suffered and lost 38 seconds to the race leader. He finished the stage in third place overall, 59 seconds down.
Stage 14 – Cobra Kai, No Mercy
Bora are racing all out to regain the green jersey for Peter Sagan, and they don’t care if they’re making the general classification riders suffer on stages that were supposed to provide some respite.
Their pace setting on the rolling terrain cut green jersey wearer sam bennett loose and opened up opportunities for Sagan to steal back points.
It was a stage that looked like it could turn into a classics stage, and it certainly felt as though that’s what happened. Sunweb attacked hard, assaulting the peloton and finally making a move stick with Soren Kragh Andersen. The Dane soloed to victory to take Sunweb’s second stage win of this year’s Tour.
Peter Sagan, the instigator, finished fourth to reclaim some points in his pursuit of an eighth green jersey.
Stage 15 – Can Anyone Stop Roglic?
On Stage 15, the last day before the rest day and a fearsome summit finish atop the Col de la Colombier, Tadej Pogačar took his second stage victory of this year’s Tour. Actually it’s his career total of Tour stage wins too. For now.
Jumbo Visma again absolutely dominated the stage. They were so dominant that the final climb looked like a team time trial, easily rivaling US Postal and Sky for incredible displays of strength. Read the word incredible any way you’d like.
The bigger story was that Egan Bernal came unstuck early in the climb and suffered all the way to the finish, ultimately losing over seven minutes and dropping out of the top ten.
And so to the finish. The pace of Jumbo Visma’s train on the front of the peloton prevented attacks, a brief forray from Adam Yates excepted, until a the finish line, a stage victory, and a few bonus seconds were in sight. Pogacar and Roglic made up the first two riders, as is becoming customary.
Can anyone stop Roglic? The margins between Roglic and most of his rivals are growing, but they’re not insurmountable yet. Still, it’s looking clear that there’s a new race, staring just two riders. Pogacar and Roglic is the rivalry we’ve been waiting for, and it’ll almost certainly push on all the way to Paris.
Talking Points
Where do INEOS go from here?
They arrived at the race set up for the overall victory and nothing else. They left behind Froome and Thomas, and banked on Bernal. Now that plan is in ruins. Do they have the personnel to win a stage in the final week? On paper, yes, but opportunities will be limited. Maybe they target the two other grand tours. I hate to even think about it, because that’d still end up being a good season for the evil empire. Let’s just enjoy their humiliation in the moment.
This race is fast.
In fact, Bernal was claiming he was matchinfg last year’s numbers while watching the race disappear up the road. The ascents have been rivalling… um. Iban Mayo. Lance Armstrong. Marco Pantani. Exciting riders that all come with an asterisk. Are we seeing what happens when there’s No Out of competition testing for six months? Well, we’d never start rumors about something that could end a rider’s career. Maybe they’re just well rested.
Pogacar vs Roglic.
It’s the frenemy story that was dwelling beneath the surface, and now it’s taken over the entire Tour. Can Pogacar deseat Roglic to win the Tour? Well, it’ll be tough. But in some ways, Pogacar is more or less where he wants to be. He’s happy to wait until the final mountain time trial. With no team, he doesn’t need to expend energy trying to defend the yellow jersey. Could he find enough time to edge the overall victory from one of his best friends in the peloton?
Predictions
I’ve surveyed the Cyclry team, collated our answers, fed them into a super computer, and applied a powerball multiplier to bring you our shoe-in predictions for the final week of the Tour.
Roglic will win the overall. That’s not too controversial of an opinion at this point. Pogacar is Roglic’s only rival, and the Jumbo Visma team will contain him comfortably. Pogacar is a faster finisher that Roglic and may pick up a couple of seconds in time bonuses on stage 17, but that’s it. It’ll be gloves off for the Jumbo Visma team if they sense an opportunity to cut Pogacar out, and it may happen since he’s been isolated frequently.
Pogacar will win the white jersey though. Hell, our prediction that he won’t beat Roglic isn’t even very strong. White jersey guaranteed. Yellow jersey, not as likely, but could do damage in the time-trial. Cool.
In the green jersey… Sagan. He looks suited to stage 19, where he’ll finish in the front group or peloton while Bennett rides the autobus. It’s going to be extremely close between him and Bennett, but we’ll go with experience. This is a heart over head decision, to be quite honest.
And in the polka dot and teams classifications… who gives a fuck?
Oops, I could’ve said “Dani Fuckin Martinez” earlier after all.