Category: Cycling

From Simpson’s sad death to Froome’s bizarre run, the ‘Bald Mountain’ has always been the place where stuff happens

The decades pass, generations of Tour de France cyclists come and go, but some gruesome things never change. On Tuesday, the survivors of one of the craziest, fastest Tours ever, a race with even less respite than usual, will do as their predecessors have done every few years since 1951: they will crest a rise in the road, and see Mont Ventoux on the horizon. A sinking in the heart will accompany the dull ache in the legs: we’re off to the Bald Mountain once again.

The men of the Tour probably won’t be thankful for small mercies, but they should be. Last time the Tour visited, in 2021, although the background scenario was the same – Tadej Pogacar had smashed the race to bits on the first serious climb and was set fair for victory – the organisers cruelly made them go over the 1,910m summit twice, in two different ways. Wout van Aert might recall that with a wry smile: the Belgian was in his prime back then and he won out of a breakaway.

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Tadej Pogacar followed the Dutch Team Ineos rider home after Remco Evenepoel abandoned early in the stage

We approach the départ réel, the reality of a heavy day in the saddle dawns. Here we go!

In Pau, the rain is coming down but that’s cooled the temperature down to 19 degrees.

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Tadej Pogacar rode away from all his rivals on the Hautacam to forge a commanding 3min 31sec lead in the overall race

“I’m OK. Nothing too bad,” Pogacar tells Matt Stephens after his crash yesterday. “My whole left arm is open, burned off skin. And I hit my hip a little bit and my shoulder, but luckily I was back on the bike quite fast. Today is another day. It’s not the first time I crashed and continued the race. It’s more important the legs than my arm. I have a super-strong team around me. I am so grateful I can rely on them, even if I have a hard day today, but I hope not.

“It’s really sad to lose another young talent,” Pogacar says of Samuele Privitera’s death at the Giro della Valle d’Aosta yesterday. “It’s devastating. It’s one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Sometimes the risks we are taking are too far. I’m really sad for all his family. May he rest in peace … he deserves to “not be bothered” now. It’s a sad loss.”

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• Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen claims win in Toulouse

• Pogacar falls 5km from end but quickly back on bike

Chaos reigned on stage 11 of the Tour de France in Toulouse as the defending champion, Tadej Pogacar, crashed and an anti-Israel protester ran on to the final straight. Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen claimed the stage win ahead of second-placed Mauro Schmid of Switzerland.

A male protester wearing a ‘Israel out of the Tour’ T-shirt ran on to the home straight, as two frontrunners sprinted for victory, before he was restrained by a security officer. The protester, who was also waving a keffiyeh, was about 50m from the finish line. Israel is represented on the Tour through the Israel-Premier Tech team, but no Israeli riders are in the race.

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There are questions around the race contenders’ teams but Wout van Aert’s form could be key for the Danish challenger

There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France’s first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year’s race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It’s a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour’s opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive.

Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma’s management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in.

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• European champion pipped Italian to the line for victory

• Tadej Pogacar remains top of general classification

Tim Merlier out-sprinted Jonathan Milan to victory on stage nine of the Tour de France after Mathieu van der Poel almost pulled off an audacious win in Chateauroux.

Van der Poel had rolled off the front of the peloton alongside his Alpecin–Deceuninck teammate Jonas Rickaert at the start of the 174km stage from Chinon in what looked a certain suicide mission, but the Dutchman held off the chasing pack until the final few hundred metres.

Jeremy Whittle’s report from Chateauroux to follow

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• Italian holds on to pink jersey on closing run to Imola

• Liane Lippert pips Anna van der Breggen in late burst

Elisa Longo Borghini has retained her Giro d’Italia Women title, holding on to the pink jersey she claimed on Saturday’s queen stage as the race concluded at Imola.

Longo Borghini (Team UAE ADQ) sealed her second victory at her home Grand Tour, after losing just four bonus seconds to Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser (Movistar) on the final stage, winning the title by 18 seconds overall.

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Tadej Pogacar prevailed on the final climb to Mûr-de-Bretagne, holding off Jonas Vingegaard with Britain’s Oscar Onley finishing in third place

• Read Jeremy Whittle’s stage seven report from Mûr-de-Bretagne

Oscar Onley: The Scottish Picnic PostalNL rider is 11th on General Classification but his team boss said on Wednesday that he’s more interested in the 22-year-old from Kelso trying to nick a stage win or two than finishing high up the GC. Onley is a good climber and today’s is a stage he’ll have marked down as a potential win.

Christian Prudhomme on today’s stage: “The peloton’s stay in Brittany will kick off with another contest between the puncheurs,” said the race director. “After leaving Saint-Malo and heading for Saint-Brieuc, history buffs will recall the exploits of Bernard Hinault as the race passes through his home village of Yffiniac.

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Remco Evenepoel justified his red hot favouritism and Tadej Pogacar took the oiverall race lead on a bad day at the office for Jonas Vingegaard

• Read Jeremy Whittle’s stage five report from Caen

An intriguing sub-plot: Still eligible for the best young rider (under-25) category, Remco Evenepoel is the odds-on favourite to win today’s stage but should the Belgian endure a rare bad day at the ITT office, there’s a decent chance Scotland’s very own Oscar Onley could take the white jersey.

Riding in only his second Tour de France, the 22-year-old from Perth is a highly commendable seventh overall on General Classification but is only 29 seconds behind Kevin Vauquelin, who is currently in possession of the garment and will have plenty of support as he rides today’s ITT on his home roads of Normandy. It’s a tall order but a big performance from Oscar (and a poor one from Remco) could see the Picnic PostNL rider wrestle the white jersey from the Frenchman’s shoulders.

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The defending champion held off his challengers on the road to Rouen but Mathieu van der Poel stayed in yellow

160 km to go: Van der Poel takes a comfort break as the peloton deigns to the race leader and sits up. Asgreen is giving everything up the hill as he chases that trio of escapees.

Huw Morgan gets in touch: “Just been to Amiens to watch the depart. Always a strange experience “watching” cycling live. We drove an hour and 10 minutes for our 10 month old baby to basically gawp at a 150 young men on their bikes. Wout and Pogacar stopped right in front of us so we feel lucky. My wife’s sense from watching them all at the start was that Jonas looks good and Pogacar looks good. We expect a Royal rumble in Rouen.”

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Bernard Hinault was the last home champion as the sport has gone international, with winners from Colombia and Slovenia

Age is not just about the policemen getting younger and trying to figure out how to operate an iPhone. It may also be when you are able to tell your children that you once saw an actual French cyclist wearing the actual yellow jersey of the Tour de France having actually just won la grande boucle.

It’s 39 years, 11 months and about three weeks since I watched a tired and slightly diminished-looking Bernard Hinault get out of a car in a backstreet in Lisieux – once the massive crowd pressing on the car doors had been moved on by the heavies – before pulling on that maillot jaune, getting wearily on to his bike, before spinning past, time after time in the late-evening sunlight in the town’s annual post-Tour critérium, an exhibition race which still takes place on the first Tuesday after the Tour.

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Tadej Pogacar’s UAE team and Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma lead the way but watch out for Soudal-QuickStep

Two men, Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen, with one plan: stage wins and the green jersey; VDP is the big star, but in recent Tours de France it’s been “Jasper Disaster” who has delivered. On the flat stages, VDP uses his explosive power and superlative bike handling to lead out Philipsen, who has won nine stages in the last three Tours and the green jersey in 2023. Anywhere a bit lumpy will be for VDP, although he has taken only one Tour stage in his career. That was at Mûr de Bretagne in 2021, so watch out for him when the Tour returns there on 11 July.

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