Sacre bleu!
Crash in the race for the yellow jersey
Just when things had been going so smoothly. After seizing control of this year’s Tour de France with his late attack on La Planche des Belles Filles on Thursday, Geraint Thomas very nearly lost it yesterday.
A big crash, 15 kilometres from the finish of a wonderfully dramatic eighth stage from Macon to Saint-Etienne, caused the Welshman to hit the deck along with a number of his Ineos teammates, one of whom, Gianni Moscon, saw his £11,000 carbon bike snapped in two.
Fortunately for Thomas, he was unhurt and able to remount quickly. And with help from team-mates Wout Poels and Jonathan Castroviejo, he managed to chase back on within a few kilometres, catching the tail end of the bunch just as they hit the final categorised climb of the day, the Cote de la Jaillere.
Unfortunately for him, just as he was moving back up through the mass of riders, Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Julian Alaphilippe launched his bid to reclaim the yellow jersey he lost on Thursday.
Attacking over the top, the swashbuckling musketeer of French cycling sliced his way clear, hoovering up the bonus seconds on offer at the summit of the climb and stringing out the group behind him.
Crucially, Alaphilippe also took FDJ’s Thibaut Pinot, one of Thomas’s main rivals for the overall, with him.
A fascinating finale ensued. At the front of the race was Belgian hardman Thomas de Gendt, who had been part of the day’s four-man breakaway but had now forged on solo. His lead, which had stood at around 34 seconds as Alaphilippe and Pinot crested the final climb, was being eroded with every pedal stroke.
Behind them, the main group of general classification contenders were eager not to lose time to Pinot but less so to do the work required to bring the French duo back. In the end, De Gendt secured a brilliant and utterly deserved stage win – just reward for having been up the road all day, the last 15km solo. Pinot was second over the line, just six seconds behind, leapfrogging Thomas on GC and moving up to third overall, and first of the maillot jaune contenders, 19 sec ahead of the Welshman.
If that was not enough to send France – a country which has been waiting 34-years for a French winner of Le Tour – absolutely potty then Alaphilippe coming home third and reclaiming the maillot jaune in time for Bastille Day completed the job. The atmosphere at the finish was sensational, with Alaphilippe and Pinot – the cover stars of yesterday’s L’Equipe – certain to get the Hollywood treatment this morning.
Thomas was left licking his wounds. He knows, though, that it could have been so much worse. He is still fifth on GC, just 19secs behind Alaphilippe, but it remains to be seen whether he will pay for his efforts in the long run.
“I’m fine,” he said of the crash, which was caused when EF Education First’s Michael Woods went down just in front of the Ineos train. “It’s just frustrating. Obviously it was a key moment in the race. Woods crashed, and just took out Gianni and me. I got tangled in Gianni’s bike and took some time to get going.
“The boys did a great job [though]. I caught up, and moved up through the group, but by the time I was in the first 10 or 15 positions that’s when they [Alaphilippe and Pinot] sprinted over the top for the bonus seconds.
‘‘So I was kind of gassed for a bit. It’s annoying and frustrating. But at the same time, to come back like I did shows I had good legs. You just don’t want to give any unnecessary time away. If I hadn’t crashed I could have followed, and it’s a totally different story today. That’s how it goes.”
That is how it goes. Thomas, who had a puncture earlier in the stage, is unlikely to get too worked up about it. The Welshman’s unflappable demeanour is probably his greatest strength as he hunts a second successive Tour title. The loss of five seconds to coleader Egan Bernal on the climb into Epernay on Monday might have wobbled any other rider, inviting as it did questions about the leadership within Ineos as well as suggestions that Thomas’s form might not be there this year.
Thomas did not react, letting his legs do the talking three days later in the Vosges. He hinted that he had more left in the tank yesterday but “didn’t want to ride on the front and tow everyone” to the finish. “It’s frustrating,” he said. “I was sat there thinking, ‘Come on’.”
It was a wise decision. There are still 12 stages to go, starting with today’s Bastille Day slog from Saint-Etienne to Brioude, which is sure to be hard.
Better to save the legs. Yesterday’s crash was unfortunate, but a bullet dodged in the wider context of the race.