A stage for the sprinters only there are so few in the race it could suit the breakaway too.
To offset a predictable preview, today’s postcard tells the tale of one of the best jerseys ever.
Stage 4 Review: sprint or breakaway, that was the question in the morning. It went to the breakaway on a blisteringly fast stage. No early move went clear, too many efforts cancelling each other out. It was only mid-stage that Quinn Simmons went solo and then a counter-group got across. Helped by a “Noah’s ark” tactic with three teams each sending two riders in the move, they only got a slim lead.
Cofidis led the chase to keep the gap at 90 seconds, then Visma-LAB joined. The gap fell but the breakaway was unified as if repeating the previous day’s team time trial. It left a tense final half hour where it was touch and go if the break would make it or the bunch would get them, and suspense both ways as who could win from the break and which sprinters were left?
It’s hard to engineer but a sprint stage that has hills in the early and mid-section can make for a lively stage as it sets up the breakaway and the chase. Like the Giro, the Dauphiné Aura Tour has plenty of terrain on hand for this.
Simmons won the sprint ahead of Finn Fisher-Black and Matteo Vercher, a birthday present for Lidl-Trek team manager Andy Schleck. Three road stages, three breakaway wins.
The Route: 198km and some climbing out of the Gier valley to start with. There’s the unmarked climb out of the Val d’Oingt around the 100km mark amid the Beaujolais vineyards and then its onto flatter terrain where the local is Paul Seixas. Precise knowledge won’t help as the roads are largely flat.
The Finish: the Dombes is a large wetland area full of lakes and ponds and very flat. The finish is the same as the 2015 Dauphiné and 2016 Tour de France finish, flat and the last corner is with 3km to go.
The Contenders: a sprint stage in a race with few sprinters. Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB) won the bunch sprint yesterday ahead of Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain) and that’s an easy scenario to see again today as Van Aert tends to win while the other two don’t. This trio does seem ahead of other picks, Dorion Godon (Ineos) would like an uphill run to the line, Michael Matthews (Jayco), well he’s 35 and Matteo Trentin (Tudor) is 36.
It’s not easy ambush territory for a Segaert-style move and some of the most likely riders to try this like Edoardo Affini, Benjamin Thomas or Matej Mohorič have sprinters to work for; maybe Josh Tarling has a go but it’ll be hard just to surprise the bunch and get a gap.
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Van Aert |
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Bauhaus, Coquard |
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Romeo, Godon, Hofstetter, Kockelmann |
Weather: 20°C and a light NW wind of 15km/h.
TV: KM0 is at 12.45pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm.
Postcard from Saint-Chamond
Today’s start is in the Gier valley between Saint-Etienne and Lyon, an industrial area with steel mills and textile factories only most closed down years ago.
It was in Saint-Chamond that Roger Zannier, the son of an Italian builder, bought two sewing machines in 1962: one for him and one for his sister Josette. He began his own textile business. It flourished and by 1982 Zannier’s company stopped manufacturing clothes and instead was designing and selling them, and able to hire others to manufacture them.
During the 1986 Tour de France the Peugeot team got news from its sponsor that the funding would stop at the end of the year, the end of a sponsorship that began in 1901. This stunned team manager Roger Legeay who convinced TV channel TF1 to do a news feature on the team’s history and its search for a new sponsor. One person watching this was Zannier, now running a successful clothing empire. He and his marketing director went for it and would use their children’s clothing brand “Z” as the new sponsor for 1987. This story is told in full with a lot more detail in the July-essential Pédale mag.
Z started with a bang, their kit featured a bold graphic design because of the new technique of sublimation. As lively as the kit was, the 1987 Tour was a flop for Z. Upcoming hope Ronan Pensec had finished third in the Dauphiné and then decided to do a pre-Tour clean of the gutters on his house and fell, breaking several bones. Zannier had gone all in, pulling all TV and billboard ads for Z to spend the money on a cycling team instead but had little to show.
The next year Zannier knew the results might not be better but wanted the team to be more visible. He bought a TV for his office so he could tune in when coverage started. “Let’s be realistic, we won’t win the Tour, but I want a Z every day in the breakaway at 3.00pm” Zannier instructed Legeay, adding “do as you like, I don’t care, even if the guy dies at the finish, but I want to see the guys at the front.”
It worked, the team was visible and being up front gave them options on the win and Jérôme Simon took a stage with Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle second on another day.
Zannier was exploring manufacturing in China and found factory owners who had demanded letters of credit now recognised him and Z because they’d seen the glimpses of the Tour de France, knew he was something big and were ready to work for him. Zannier invested more in the team, hiring Robert Millar for 1989 and then for 1990 recruiting Greg LeMond who’d just won the 1989 Tour de France and Worlds. LeMond would win the Tour with Z in 1990 and they took the team prize, it’s the last time a French team won the Tour.
Zannier pulled the cycling sponsorship but Z kept on retailing for years but the franchises gradually closed in the 2010s, then Zannier had sold out and seemingly left the new buyers with a turkey. The company was liquidated in 2020, it’s HQ in Saint-Chamond closed for good.
Zannier owned other brands like Catimini clothes and Kickers shoes and made a fortune from it all with which he and his family then pivoted towards luxuries, buying a Michelin-starred restaurant and a fancy wine château which he operates today along with his son. A long way from a sewing machine for him and his sister.
Z lives on as an iconic design, the cycling jersey arguably more famous than the chain of children’s clothing stores it represented. It’s also digital indoor cycling platform Zwift lets riders unlock the vintage jersey.
This might be remembered as the race where the peleton couldn’t catch the breakaway.