A thrilling Tour de France
For once, the Tour de France is “impossible to call”, said Tom Cary in The Daily Telegraph. In the years since Bradley Wiggins won the race, in 2012, it had become too predictable: all but one of the winners came from Team Sky (now known as Ineos). But this year, it “just keeps on defying predictions”. At the start of the final week, the French cyclist Julian Alaphilippe held a healthy lead in the general classification. But the cyclists in the five places behind him – among them Iast year’s champion, Ineos rider Geraint Thomas and Alaphilippe’s compatriot, Thibaut Pinot – are practically neck-and-neck: just 39 seconds separate them. Whoever ends up winning this weekend, this is shaping up to be the most exciting Tour in three decades.
No one has dominated the race in recent years like Chris Froome, said Matt Dickinson in The Times. He has won four of the last five Tours he has competed in. But he suffered a horrific crash last month, which ruled him out of this Tour – and his absence has “opened up possibilities that shift thrillingly with every acceleration”. With two French cyclists in the running, the hosts are praying they will have their first champion in 34 years, and that “the years of British domination are over”. And while one British cyclist, the Mitchelton-Scott rider Simon Yates, did win his second stage in four days on Sunday, it felt like a footnote – even for British fans. “Parochialism can be set aside when a race is as thrilling as this.”