photo credits @ Le Tour
A crash-marred finish after crosswind chaos in south-west France resulted in a second sprint win for Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) over his Belgian rival Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) in Pau.
Philipsen came from deep to show his class and hold off Van Aert and the German Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) after a crash on the home straight dashed the hopes of Belgian champion Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny) and a handful of other outsiders.
The in-form green jersey Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty) could only finish a distant fourth after his hopes of a famous fourth win did not materialize after a stage that felt more like a hilly spring classic than a sprint stage of the Tour de France.
Meanwhile, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) taking ninth place in the bunch sprint only emphasized the crazy nature of the 165.3km ride from Agen, which was animated from the get-go as blustery winds twice tore through the peloton and caused dangerous splits and some serious soul-searching.
As a result, Pogacar retained his 1’06” lead over Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) ahead of a decisive weekend in the Pyrenees, with defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) lurking in third place a further eight seconds back.
Race Highlights
After the pre-stage withdrawals of Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), there were 160 riders left in the peloton at the start from Agen, with breakaway attempts launched as soon as kilometer zero was reached, and the initial protagonists were quickly joined by more attackers to form a very strong group of 23 riders in the front.
Juan Ayuso stops
The presence in the front group of Yates, 8th overall and 6’59” behind the Yellow Jersey, prompted Visma-Lease a Bike to pull hard to try to prevent the breakaway from succeeding. Around kilometer 25, the Dutch team doubled their efforts by launching an attack in the crosswinds with five of their riders accelerating. Only Joao Almeida, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-dstny) and Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) withstood the burst of energy from Jonas Vingegaard’s teammates, who themselves were soon reinforced by Tratnik dropping back from the breakaway. However, Visma’s offensive was canceled at km 33 by Ineos Grenadiers. Having completed the first hour of racing at an average speed of 48.2 km/h, the 21 remaining escapees had only built a 1’00” advantage. In the peloton Soudal-Quick Step, Jayco-AlUla, Ineos Grenadiers, Arkea-B&B Hotels and Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale (without a presence in the breakaway) were all pulling hard, with collaboration from Visma-Lease a Bike. The high pace of the stage soon claimed a victim with the abandonment of Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates), who is unwell due to Covid-19. The Spaniard was 9th in the general classification at the start of the day.
Four men stay clear
At km 69 Cort attacked and took Kwiatkowski, Bernard and Gregoire with him to form ‘a breakaway from the breakaway’. Passing through Nogaro (IS, km 88.5), the quartet led by Gregoire had a 55” advantage over their former breakaway companions and 1’10” over the main group, which would end up hunting down the 16 pursuers at km 96. The calm would only last until km 104, when Visma-Lease a Bike tried another attack that broke up the peloton. Amongst the men in the top 10 overall, only Adam Yates was relegated to a second group, who nevertheless ended up returning to the safety of the Yellow Jersey group, which would themselves catch the leading quartet at km 115.
Philipsen does it again
There were several waves of attacks towards the end of the stage with Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education – EasyPost) getting away from the bunch on the Côte de Blachon (Cat. 4, km 127), which Johannessen was the first to arrive at the summit of, before repeating that success on the Côte de Simacourbe (Cat. 4, km 136.3). Carapaz and Johannessen were caught 21 km from the finish and whilst there more attempts to break free from the peloton it was another bunch finish in Pau. The final sprint was somewhat marred by a crash that saw half a dozen riders go down, but Philipsen was not caught up in the trouble and could not be stopped as he flew to the line for another memorable victory.
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