Thomas passes first mountain challenge with flying colours
Champion leaves rivals trailing on tough ascent Ciccone takes the yellow jersey after Teuns’ win
Well, that answers that. Cardiff had better start stockpiling bunting and putting out feelers on possible parade dates, because Geraint Thomas’s hopes of winning a second successive Tour de France received a major boost yesterday. It is on.
Not to get too carried away, of course. There are still 14 stages, four mountain-top finishes and about 2,500 kilometres to go before we reach Paris. And the gap between Thomas in fifth and Richie Porte in 21st remains just over a minute. “Long way to go,” as Thomas remarked on Twitter last night.
But if this was a day of reckoning for the Welshman – as it was billed after his crash at the recent Tour of Switzerland, which deprived him of the chance to test his legs in some mountain stages – he came through it with flying colours.
When this wonderfully entertaining sixth stage reached its climax, and the dust was flying on the new, gravel section at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles, and the riders hit its vertiginous 24 per cent ramp, it was Thomas who emerged strongest, powering away from his rivals to take fourth on the stage and a few precious seconds. More than the seconds, it was the statement he seemed to be making: Do not write me off.
Of course, he played it down afterwards. Thomas is never one to get too excited. “I felt pretty good,” he said. “It is decent.” But the complexion of this race changed yesterday, not least because Thomas took nine seconds out of his young coleader Egan Bernal, whom many had tipped for the victory and the yellow jersey.
That went instead to Giulio Ciccone ( Trek-segafredo), although previous incumbent Julian Alaphilippe and his DeceuninckQuick-step team will be cursing themselves. They ought to have held on to it.
Ciccone had got into the day’s breakaway, which formed early and was gradually whittled down from 14 riders to four as the race made its way across six categorised climbs.
Crucially, though, by the time Ciccone, Xandro Meurisse ( WantyGroupe Gobert), Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-merida) and Tim Wellens (Lotto-soudal) had reached the foot of La Planche des Belles Filles, they still had four minutes with which to play. That is a decent advantage on a seven-kilometre climb, even one as tough as this.
Wellens was first to be dropped, then Meurisse, leaving Ciccone and Teuns to go mano a mano. Teuns ended up winning the battle, Ciccone the war, claiming the maillot jaune from Alaphilippe despite the latter rider’s best efforts.
Clearly aware that it was going to come down to seconds, the Frenchman launched his own desperate attack from the GC group with about 800m remaining. But he ran out of gas, Thomas and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) both catching him before the line. Even then, Alaphilippe missed out by only six seconds.
Deceuninck will be unhappy they allowed the gap to the breakaway to grow so large because, in this form, Alaphilippe could have held on to yellow until next week’s individual time trial at least. Some think he could have retained it even longer; that last year’s polka-dot
‘I thought the steep climbs were not my cup of tea, but it was actually a decent day in the end’
winner might be a GC dark horse even now.
Sir Dave Brailsford, the Ineos team principal, dismissed that suggestion when it was put to him this week. “Not a chance,” he said. “I think in time, if he [Alaphilippe] really wants to focus on GC, then he probably [can]. But I think for now, he is more of an adventurer, doing his thing.” Brailsford is no doubt right, especially with Alaphilippe having gone so deep yesterday in an effort to keep the lead. But the longer he stays up there, the more interesting it could get.
Either way, Thomas is up to fifth on GC now and clearly in a good place. His team may not have been as dominant on the first mountain test of the race as they have been in recent years – Thomas and Bernal had only Michal Kwiatkowski for company up the final climb – but that might have more to do with the brutal parcours than anything.
“I thought the steep climbs weren’t my cup of tea,” Thomas admitted. “I was expecting others – [Nairo] Quintana, Egan, [Adam] Yates – would jump up there. It was actually a decent day in the end.”