A day of wild suspense awaits. Ok, it’s sprint stage so the suspense will come late in the day but it could be more unpredictable than many a mountain stage.
Foix et raison: a move of 34 riders got clear amid shade temperatures in the high thirties Celsius, including Biniam Girmay who won the intermediate sprint ahead of Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen. Girmay sat up, Philipsen would be dropped.
Jan Tratnik took off after the sprint with Mathias Vacek joining him before Alex Kirsch bridged across. The trio had a minute but Vacek was sitting on.
Quinn Simmons led up the Col de Montségur, trying to sit at the Lagrangian point between a speed sufficient to deter attackers and the pace Mads Pedersen could climb. Movistar’s Pablo Castrillo attacked near the top and was joined by Marco Frigo and they were joined by eight more including three from Lidl-Trek.
Castrillo made plenty of attacks but each one looked increasingly stale; his team mate Raul Garcia Pierna had lost his jump too. It was valiant but the Lidl-Trek trio were the strongest riders in the move: Vacek had been able to roll with Pogačar in the Tour de Suisse recently, Simmons an Aura Tour stage winner and Pedersen, well he hadn’t won a race this season yet but is among the best going for a finish like this. Their strength was impressive but so was their cohesion, carefully covering moves and never being caught out. They had force to spare and overcome a hesitation or mistake but didn’t need to deploy it. As much others may have wanted to believe they had a chance, reason said Lidl-Trek was always going to win in Foix.
Kévin Vauquelin tried to bomb the final corner but Mads Pedersen launched his sprint with a late bid for the combativity prize such was his finishing kick. Back in May team DS Steven Jongh came out to check the course and once he reached the finish called Pedersen to say it was perfect for him. Your blogger reconned the roads and thought the same. Pedersen takes the green jersey but now come the pure-sprinter friendly stages.
Torstein Træen is the new yellow jersey wearer, the Norwegian (trivia: with a Japanese grandmother) has 28 seconds on Sean Quinn, almost four minutes on Vacek and then nearly eight minutes on Tadej Pogačar. He’ll get to spend Stage 5 in yellow. Stage 6 is the Pyrenean mountain stage with the Aspin-Tourmalet combo. He’s finished 9th overall in the Vuelta so ought to be ready for a long spell in yellow. His hold on yellow depends whether Pogačar or others make incendiary moves on the Tourmalet. This probably suits Pogačar too.
The Route: 158km and 1,600m of vertical gain. If this is going to be branded a sprint stage it’s a mildly hilly one and can be exploited by breakaway riders but probably later on. The start has some big wide roads and an unmarked climb before Trie-sur-Baïse but all on rolling roads.
The spice comes later in the stage with some rolling roads with some sharp climbs, one is marked but others are not. Nothing big it could be exploited by some riders but plenty of teams with house sprinters have an interest in containing things and the short distance suits teams wanting to keep a lid on things. The more subtle interest is which teams work all day and which other ones try to free ride off the back of them.
The Finish: flat and often but not always wide boulevards in Pau and the same finish as 2024 when Jasper Philipsen won, including a sharp left turn by the flamme rouge.
The Contenders: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-PremierTech) and Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quickstep) are the two lead sprinters on paper. Philipsen has a slight advantage with this hilly course but the climbs today are mild but might sap Merlier by a small amount; but he will be fresh from not going in the breakaway and sitting out intermediate sprints.
Two opposing stories with Biniam Girmay (NSN) as a multiple Tour stage winner trying to get a big win again after an excellent 2024 vintage and things look promising, twice now he’s won intermediate sprints. Meanwhile Olav Kooij (Decathlon-CGM) is a debutant after his first Tour win and a big talent to deliver this.
It’ll be hard for someone else to win ahead of these four but no sprint is ever the same. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) can win bunch sprints but would like an uphill run to the line, just placing is good for his green jersey quest. Milan Fretin (Cofidis) is on the up. Fernando Gaviria (Caja Rural) would be fun after all these years. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain), Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) and Pascal Ackermann (Jayco) don’t win very often. Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X) hasn’t won a World Tour sprint. Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor) is a flat sprint specialist and already struggling in the hills. Finally Pavel Bittner (Picnic-PostNL) has won Vuelta stages but it would be a miracle for his team if he wins.
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Philipsen, Girmay, Merlier |
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Kooij |
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Pedersen |
Weather: sunny and hot but not as infernal as the previous stage, 35°C with a NNE breeze of 10km/h.
TV: KM0 is at 2.15pm and the finish is forecast for 5.45pm CEST. If you’re rationing your viewing then tune in late to catch the approach and bunch finish. There’s plenty of gentle scenery to enjoy all day.
Right, back to the cycling.
The thing I noticed in today’s stage was the behaviour of Pog and Træen. Pog was laughing and joking with his teammates, so did not seem at all disturbed at losing the yellow jersey. This might possibly be due to the fact that Urška is back on her bike and won’t need surgery, so giving him a better reason to be happy than getting another fluffy lion.
Træen looked HAUNTED on the cooldown bike. He was staring into the distance with a blank expression as if he had shell-shock. He was in the red jersey during the Vuelta so should know somewhat what he’s in for, but he gives the impression of a condemned man heading to the gallows.
You would have thought any cyclist would love to be in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, but it seems otherwise…
I watched Træen’s interview on TV and it was drier than the road surface. He seemed to be about as happy as if he’d found a €5 note on the floor, nice but with the concern it belong to someone else so not ready to spend it yet.
Hopefully it sinks in and he enjoys the start of the stage and all that follows soon.
Absolutely loved that stage. Once it became clear that the gc favorites weren’t interested, the mathematics started to come into play, and it seems that Traeen is a master at the jersey snatch. Quinn was close but must have known he would be very unlikely to end up in yellow. For everyone else it was just a matter of how to beat Mads, and with the trucks he had with him in the break that also looked next to impossible. There’s something special about a race where the likes of Vacek and Simmons are just there to set up someone else’s win (although Vacek must have been contemplating his own possibilities).
Tomorrow for the fast men, and what a meh list that is compared to ten or fifteen years ago. Would be shocked if the winner isn’t either Philipsen or Merlier.