DOUBLE DELIGHT
Yates seals second stage win as Thomas recovers lost time
Even with its rich history, this should go down as one of the great days at the Tour de France. There was a second stage win for Simon Yates, a first sign of weakness from Julian Alaphilippe and further difficulties for Geraint Thomas — before the defending champion displayed a bit of Welsh grit over the final two kilometres and regained much of the time he had lost to the race leader the previous day.
Afterwards he suggested he could have gone earlier but, amid confusion created by the decision to have joint-leaders at Team Ineos, he felt he could not run the risk of assisting Alaphilippe in reducing any time lost to teammate egan Bernal. ‘I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,’ Thomas complained. ‘I wanted to go, I had the legs to go, but I wasn’t going to chase down egan with Alaphilippe on my wheel.’
The final ascent to the rainsoaked summit of Prat d’Albis was most memorable for another powerful display of climbing by Thibaut Pinot, who looks like the rider most capable of catching Alaphilippe before Paris.
The strongest man on the Tourmalet destroyed the main contenders here with a series of attacks that, one by one, killed off the opposition. Only Bernal remained with Pinot with 3.5km to go, and the 29-year-old saw off the Colombian with a surge that saw his speed rise to 28.2km/h despite the punishing gradient.
It is mesmerising stuff, the sight of this stylish, super-light climber rising out of his saddle and putting his rivals deep into the red in a manner that even makes French journalists abandon any sense of press-room decorum.
It is also a race that, increasingly, has this country heading for a national state of hysteria, given the proximity of five riders to the exhausted Alaphilippe.
Rarely has a Tour been closer and more unpredictable. Alaphilippe still enjoys a 95- second lead over Thomas going into the
second rest day, but just 39 seconds separate Thomas from emanuel Buchmann in sixth.
A rider who lost 100 precious seconds to those crosswinds earlier in this race, Pinot is now fourth, just 110 seconds down. He has the pedigree of five Grand Tour top-10 finishes, including a spot on the Paris podium in 2014, and at this moment seems best equipped to become the first French Tour winner since 1985.
Those three days in the Alps are going to be utterly fascinating, for sure, but the final day in the Pyrenees, with more than 4,000m of climbing, was terrific.
Yates was some distance up the road and Mikel Landa was chasing when the main contenders arrived at the base of the final 11.8km climb together.
Pinot’s FDJ team-mate David Gaudu was first to step up the pace, burying himself to launch his dashing compatriot.
Thomas was among the first of Pinot’s victims. It was not long before only Bernal, Alaphilippe and Buchmann were still with him. Alaphilippe cracked. Buchmann went next, then Bernal.
The Thomas group then picked up Alaphilippe and credit to the 33-year-old Brit for finding something in his legs to attack the Frenchman and take back 27 seconds. even if he did then complain of a mess seemingly of Team Ineos’s own making.
There is more harmony among the French, despite representing different teams.
‘It’s no surprise I’m starting to struggle,’ said Alaphilippe. ‘I didn’t have an ambition to win the Tour. The third week suits Pinot and if I lose the yellow jersey I would like him to take it.’