![]() The breakaway has a good chance because while we wait for Ineos and Jumbo-Visma to take the fight to UAE… we wait and wait which means the rider wanting to slip away will probably get mowed down another day rather than today. Likewise Ineos, Adam Yates and Geraint Thomas are high on GC but how to win today or take yellow? The worry, based on history more than scepticism, is we keep waiting for them to make a move and before we know the Tour is on Champs-Elysées bell lap. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) is bound to be close too and this is a big test for him and his team but they might still hold fire to measure what happens today and try more tomorrow. Yet today’s a very different test, a big climb to altitude and in hot weather. In the last five stages he’s won two, been second in another and won the sprint from his group in the other two which are all deafening clues about form. ![]() So far he’s doing everything right which is why he’s in yellow. The Contenders: the big test for Tadej Pogačar (UAE). The Granon is a colossus of a col that never lets up to the line at 2,400m above sea level. It’s been resurfaced in places but retains rasping road surface in places hat slows everyone. A one-way road built to serve a fort at the top, it winds up through pastures and wide open spaces without feeling too engineered yet the gradient is even most of the way up which, whisper it, takes a way a bit of the fear factor but also means there’s never a place for recovery, it’s relentless. The slope is hard, the length tough and it starts at 1,400m. The Finish: a left turn and the Col du Granon, 11km at over 9% and a touch of mystery as the climb’s only been used once before in 1986. The descent is in two parts, fast and a small road down the junction for the Lautaret pass. Then comes the hardest part of the climb, about 8km and all above 2,000m altitude. A quick descent into Valloire and then the Col du Galibier begins, a steep part out of town before easing to the Plan Lachat area. The Télégraphe starts off steep and eases to a steady 7% for the rest of the climb on a wide road. The Télégraphe-Galibier combo is a Tour classic and a giant climb. It’s then along a small balcony road before descending down a more regular road to the valley floor and there’s 15km up the valley. 3.2km at 8% and crucially there are 2.5km with 18 hairpin bends, that’s one every 150m or so and all on a small road, the bends are often tight and steep which matters as it’s a place to line out the peloton and launch attacks. The Lacets de Montvernier (“Montvernier hairpins”) is the first climb of the day. Riders can try to barge clear in waves but there’s nothing selective. The Route: first there’s 46km up the Maurienne valley via the early intermediate sprint. The break included Lennard Kämna all day who came close to getting the maillot jaune but seemed to suffer, understandably, from yellow fever in the final, making a flurry of moves that didn’t work, neither the stage win nor the overall lead for just 11 seconds. The final seemed to have more attacks than a Bruce Lee flick with L-L Sanchez attacking out of Megève, being joined by Nick Schultz and Matteo Jorgenson, then Dylan van Baarle, before the temporary quartet was caught by a chase group including Cort who made his way through the group to win in a photofinish. That’s three short of Warholian fame but with social media, plenty to go around the world.Īlberto Bettiol was away solo up the road on a raid to the finish line but this allowed his team mate Magnus Cort to sit back in the breakaway and follow plenty of moves. The bubble was burst a second time, July’s ivory tour besieged for 12 minutes. A purple mist as flare-wielding climate change protestors blocked the road, a moment of a drama as the race was halted. It made for a frantic day’s racing where the only downtime once the breakaway had finally got clear didn’t last. Stage 10 had a hilly course that rode through the mountains and not over them. But so far the quiet moments are hard to find, step away from the broadcast at your peril. Otherwise the Tour de France is meant to be a long, gradual event where it’s quite alright to have a boring stage now and then, a day when viewers can exhale, even sigh, from time to time. Either way it’s proof that our July distraction can’t escape the world it lives in. ![]() There’s no clear way to view this, it’s just as likely that after losing Vegard Stake Laengen and Bennett, Pogačar could be next, or equally he has the winner’s luck and swerves trouble. ![]() Nielsen ratings: the stage started sans George Bennett, the UAE rider having tested positive for Covid while team mate Rafał Majka has the virus but was eligible to continue thanks to a low rate. The first of two big days in the Alps, the profile above says plenty especially if you study both axes, just 151km on the x-axis, but a y-axis of evil, today has 4,000m of vertical gain, almost all of which comes in the second half of the stage. ![]()
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