BERNAL SETS UP WIN BY A LANDSLIDE
Ice storm leaves Ineos star in the lead after double blow for the French
AFTER Thibaut Pinot abandoned the race in tears and Julian Alaphilippe lost the yellow jersey on the brutal ascent of the highest paved pass in Europe, the dramatic landslide that brought yesterday’s stage to a premature end felt like the wrath of the French cycling gods.
It was an intervention on a biblical scale: an ice storm less than 24 hours after riders had complained of 40- degree heat. Hailstones so big and plentiful that they needed the ski resort snow ploughs from Tignes and Val d’Isere to clear the roads, and were followed by a deluge of mud and rubble off the mountainside that had spectators fleeing for safety.
It was the safety of the riders, of course, that forced organisers to stop them descending any further off the Col de l’Iseran but the decision to declare the end of the race at a summit only the leading riders had crossed felt most unsatisfactory, even if the man who is probably most deserving of the yellow jersey, and the man who reached the top of the Iseran first, starts the penultimate stage in a commanding lead.
It is a lead that now looks unassailable after reports of more landslides on today’s route along the Cormet de Roselend and more storms forecast forced race organisers to shorten the stage to 59km, making it very difficult for anyone to catch Team Ineos’s Egan Bernal.
The riders will go from Albertville straight to Val Thorens and will have only one climb after a new start time of 2.30pm.
For the first time a stage winner was not declared because of the weather. But for the first time in this extraordinary race it is possible to predict the winner, given Bernal’s 48-second lead and the strength he has displayed in the Alps.
Just as we can probably now assume that Ineos are about to celebrate their seventh Tour victory in eight years with a fourth different rider, who is not British but Colombian.
That 37km of racing and a final bruising climb up to Tignes remained before the stage was abandoned will nag at many.
The French might well bemoan the fact that Alaphilippe could have taken back some time on the descent towards Val d’Isere. Even if he might well have then lost more precious seconds, perhaps even minutes, on the 7.4km ascent to Tignes. After all, it was over less than 6km of the Iseran that he lost more than two minutes to Bernal and over a minute to Geraint Thomas and the other main contenders.
We will never know if Bernal, 22, would have had the strength to remain clear of his main rivals, or if Thomas could have taken some time back.
Last night there was a significant delay in publishing the standings because they didn’t have any timing equipment at the top of the Iseran.
In fairness to Bernal, he has been the strongest rider in the third week and if he does now reach Val Thorens this evening as the race leader it would be harsh for anyone to suggest the hugely talented Bogota rider does not deserve to ride into Paris tomorrow in yellow. Understandably he became emotional last night at the prospect of becoming
Colombia’s first Tour winner and the youngest in this race since 1935.
Earlier there were tears from Pinot, who emerged from the Pyrenees as the race favourite but who quit after just 36km of yesterday’s stage because of a knee injury sustained on Wednesday. It not only denied the French the champion they crave but the race the muchanticipated duel between Ineos and FDJ. As it is, Ineos need only concern themselves with the not terribly potent threat of Steven Kruijswijk and Emanuel Buchmann and they now have Thomas, the second strongest rider in the race, riding for Bernal.
As much became apparent when Thomas attacked first to break Alaphilippe some 6km from the summit, before Bernal then launched his own hugely impressive assault, racing away from the main GC contenders, catching the breakaway and reaching the top first.
‘Fortune favours the brave,’ was how Sir Dave Brailsford put it, explaining that they had always considered ‘the highest point of the Tour’ the most important climb. In terms of strategy, he said it had gone like clockwork.
‘We decided this morning that we didn’t want to come second and third. We wanted to win and that meant making that 37 minutes of climbing hard for Alaphilippe. We decided we would rather finish 102nd and 103rd than second and third, so we gave it everything.’
Thomas said he would indeed work for the team. ‘Egan’s in yellow so the main thing is he finishes the job,’ he said. ‘We’ll fully support him now.’