Defending champ moves up as rivals blown away
Thomas opens gap when top riders caught in high winds
ALBI, FRANCE >> Geraint Thomas and his teammates don’t need a mountain to deliver a hammer blow on their rivals at the Tour de France.
They can do it on the flat, too. With a little help from the wind.
The defending champion was the big winner of a chaotic Stage 10 in southern France on Monday when French rival Thibaut Pinot and other title contenders were caught napping by a treacherous combination of winds and narrow roads.
Unable to all ride at the front, Pinot and other riders got left behind when the winds first stretched and then shattered the peloton into groups over 20 frantic final miles of a 135-mile trek from Saint-Flour to Albi in south-central France.
Perfectly positioned at the front when the pack took different routes around a traffic circle, triggering the first split, Thomas and his Ineos teammates put pedal to the metal to make the gap on Pinot and other contenders caught behind as big as possible.
The bill for the French podium finisher in 2014, as well as Rigoberto Uran, Jakob Fuglsang and Richie Porte, was costly. They rode in a whopping 1 minute, 40 seconds behind Thomas.
“At the start we said at some point this race is going to split,” explained Luke Rowe, one of Thomas’ teammates. “We were all over it with numbers at the front.”
Once opened, the gap increased speedily, with yellow jersey-holder Julian Alaphilippe and Ineos riders setting a frenetic tempo until the end.
“We were straight on the front foot, we knew it was on us to drive it to the line,” Rowe said. “I was saying to the guys, ‘This is a TTT (team time trial) all the way to the finish line.”’
Tour de France rookie Wout Van Aert won the stage with a sprint to the line. But Thomas was the headline act.
“I couldn’t think of anything better,” Thomas said. “It’s especially good on a day like today when you never expect it. It was just a positioning error from them and they lose a minute and a half. That’s how it goes.”
Ahead of big Pyrenean stages this week, Thomas vaulted to second place overall, 1:12 behind Alaphilippe, with teammate Egan Bernal in third place, four seconds further back.
After a flawless start to the race, it was Pinot’s first mistake, and a big one. Looking to become the first Frenchman to win the race since Bernard Hinault in 1985, he dropped from third to 11th overall, 2:33 behind Alaphilipple and 1:21 behind Thomas, perhaps not fatal but a huge setback.
The peloton split into three groups on a long but narrow section of road opened to the wind when Alaphilippe’s Deceuninck Quick Step teammates sped up the pace at the front to close the gap to six breakaway riders. The fugitives were reeled in with 15 miles left before Thomas and Co., working well with Alaphilippe’s team, pushed harder.