Tuesday 22: 12:10–12h40 → 16:45–17:15
This first stage of the last sequence is made of a long and boring approach that manages to avoid every hill available, before the Mont Ventoux as single and final climb.
Given the profile, and the fact that it comes after a rest day, we may see many explosions on the first slopes of the Ventoux. Luckily, no hot weather is expected.
Unless someone abandons during the rest day, there should still be 166 riders in the race (out of 184 starting on the first day). 165 after Van der Poel’s withdrawal.
Standings before the last sequence
General classification
- T. Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 4′13″
- F. Lipowitz 🇩🇪 Bora – 7′53″
- O. Onley 🇬🇧 Picnic – 9′18″
- K. Vauquelin 🇫🇷 Arkéa – 10′21″
- P. Roglitch 🇸🇮 Bora – 10′34″
- F. Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon – 12′00″
- T. Johannessen 🇳🇴 Uno-X – 12′33″
- C. Rodriguez 🇪🇸 Ineos – 18′26″
- B. Healy 🇮🇪 EF – 18′41″
Points
- J. Milan 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek – 251 pts
- T. Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE – 223
M. Van der Poel 🇳🇱 Alpecin – 210- B. Girmay 🇪🇷 Intermarché – 169
- T. Merlier 🇧🇪 Soudal-QS – 150
Mountain
- L. Martinez 🇫🇷 Barhrain – 60 pts
- T. Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE – 52
- T. Arensman 🇳🇱 Ineos – 48
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 39
- M. Woods 🇨🇦 IPT – 38
Teams
- Visma 🇳🇱
- UAE 🇦🇪 – 16′51″
- Bora 🇩🇪 – 50′38″
- Decathlon 🇫🇷 – 52′38″
- Arkéa 🇫🇷 – 52′39″
NB: the gap between Visma and UAE is the same (difference is just 6 seconds) as before the second sequence!
Seems like quite a boring stage on paper and I will be quite surprised if Pogacar doesn’t win again.
EDIT: Very happy to be wrong! One of the best Ventoux finishes I can remember and nice to see the French get a win. I feel a bit disappointed for Mas, he really hasn’t won much in his career despite being a very good climber. I wasn’t sure if Roglic and Lipowitz were working together at first - it seemed like they were attacking each other. But at the end Roglic appeared to have helped Lipowitz create a big gap on Onley so I guess they aren’t completely stupid.
Was actually a fun stage, much to my surprise.
Agreed (see edit above).
Off day (Monday) so catching up now. Crazy to see Remco abandoned on Saturday. Watching Sunday’s stage now and crazy breakaway at the start.
I kind of agree this stage might be dull but who knows. Lot of flat land coming out of a rest day.
I am very surprised to see so many riders volunteering for a breakaway.
edit: After a group of 3 fought to stay ahead of counter-attacks for many dozens of km, it was finally a huge group that broke away when there were only 95 km left to go!
That was an insane stage. Healy looked monstrous. Happy for VPP but man, was hoping Healy would take it but he took off too quick.
And Jonas is a beast but just can’t shake Tadej. Feel bad for him honestly. He hasn’t been set up right to win I don’t believe (but Pog is also just next level.)
Yep, Mont Ventoux can be pretty uneventful in my opinion, consisting only of riders dropping little by little, but this Ventoux climbing wasn’t the case at all! Lots of attacks, quite many comebacks, 2 or 3 levels of racing at the same time. 👍
I guess we can be lucky that Pogatchar/UAE only used Politt to make a moderate pace at the front of the peloton. If they had put just one extra rider, this race would have ended with only the usual Vingegaard/Pogatchar fight, and another Pogatchar victory.
The Australian commentators wondered whether UAE made a tactical mistake at the beginning of the stage trying to close down too many small groups (in particular the move with Plapp and another rider which was bridging and had a decent gap but was pulled back). In the end, they were forced to let a massive group of 30+ riders go up the road, with multiple riders from the same teams who could work for their leaders in the group to get a big gap. Even with all the cat and mouse games in the lead group and Vingegaard and Pogacar racing each other up the climb, the breakaway still won.
I agree with this mistake in the first part – and Politt’s attempt to intimidate attackers wasn’t well received. However, in the second part of race when the large group left, they still could have stopped the gap earlier, they had available riders who wouldn’t be useful later on Ventoux slopes; it was just a matter of giving 5 mn instead of 6 mn, and that was easily in UAE domestiques’ league.
I think that, perhaps, Pogatchar wasn’t feeling wonderful before the climb, and hesitated on playing for victory or not.
Maybe, Pogacar does seem to be racing a bit “smarter” this year. Like not going crazy on every stage like a one-day racer and instead riding a bit more conservatively like you’d normally see from someone leading the GC.
Van der Poel will not start the stage. Apparently ill.
Green jersey contenders are reduced to Milan and Pogatchar. Girmay seems too far.
I heard Vingegaard crashed in the mess after the line…
Gachignard made it to the top within delays. I remember seeing him announced as being over 17 minutes behind the front of the race, somewhere before the start of the climb, after spending the majority of the race agonising alone. And he’s supposed to have finished only 32 minutes behind. Some motorised magic in the climb? 😀
Big work by Raul Garcia Pierna who dragged Vauquelin up to the top of the Ventoux. He has really discovered some proper climbing legs during this tour.
