It was not good to put a runner outside, this Saturday, between Ain and Doubs. Corps of water that come to freeze your skin, give you chills at the slightest turn and hide your view. After two exhausting days and well watered in the Alps, the runners did not have the slightest respite during the 20th stage of the Tour de France this Saturday. A brewed, rugged step, promised to backpackers. In any case to those to whom he remained a little force, on the eve of arriving in Paris.
After three weeks of racing, there were many of them wanting to take off. Regulars of the exercise (Asgreen, Van Den Broek), runners placed to the general (Healy, Jegat), sprinters (Groves, Stewart), luxury teammates (Wellens, Jorgenson) … All without any team in control in the peloton to stop these attacks. For more than 60 km, the pace has never dropped in a tone, the attempts succeeding each other.
“Velasco insulted me with all names”
While the yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar says it is tired and not very motivated, after a large loop which he crushed his talent and his arrogance, too, others continue to delight followers, despite cataclysmic conditions. A completely crazy race not padlocked by the Slovenian Gluton team, even if we already imagined Tim Wellens coming to light up everyone’s hopes of a supersonic attack in the only big coast of the day 60 km from the finish.
No, finally UAE did not exist during the day, to the delight of the rest of the living. We still have some being wrathing by the presence at the front of Jordan Jegat (11th of the general) who sought to enter the Top 10 of the Tour. Some have kindly asked him to get up to give the breakaway a chance to go to the end, while the Italian Simone Velasco used a little less rider methods.
“There is only Velasco who insulted me with all the names. I am not talking about Italian but I understand very well what he told me, said Jordan Jegat on arrival. He told me words that are not good to be made. I go to the breakaway, it’s my right, I don’t see why he is forced to insult me, it’s a shame. Tim Wellens and other runners told him that he didn’t have to talk like that, it’s the game. ”
The hopes of Grégoire flights in a fall
Despite his inexperience, Jordan Jegat did not drop, unlike the Jayco-Alula team who was trying to protect his leader Ben O’Connor (10th), but finally resolved to let the escape before the hardness of the task. “I am a Breton, I never let go of anything, you always have to go,” rejoiced Jegat on arrival, after the formalization of his arrival in the general top 10. I went to get it. I put what I had to put on the road, it pays, I am moved. It is a pride, I was keen to give that to the team and to all the people who support me. »»
The leader of the total-direct energy was not the only one to be ovationed on the aisle. Local of the stage, Romain Grégoire thought he had done the hardest by slipping into the breakaway. Seeing him stand on the pedals 23 km from the finish, making the rest of the breakaway suffocate, we even started to believe in a second French success on this great loop, chauvin that we are. But that was before the drama …
A fall in a soggy turn which has reduced his hopes of victory at home. “I had done everything until this fall, on roads that I knew, with super sensations, regretted the puncher of Groupama-FDJ, already at the front at the start of the round. I saw a runner falling in front of me, I had to brake. But the very admission of Romain Grégoire, even without this fall, it would have been difficult to see him impose himself in Pontarlier.
Groves, large thighs and big hearts
Because Grégoire would have had to stuff this hard -cook hard -cook, more accustomed to come rub with the large thighs in massive sprints than to find himself in escape. The Australian survived the bumpy course, at the attacks in the Coast of Théy (3.8 km at 8.9 % on average) and with a frantic pace. “It would have been complicated to beat him since the number he did, but I would have liked to be in the match until the end,” assured Grégoire, who needed a few hip stitches.
Frank Van Den Broek and Jake Stewart thought of being, being present alongside the Australian, but by dint of rereading the Guiboles, they did not see Groves to make the trunk kindly at 16 km from the line, until he no longer see him again. After the abandonments of his two leaders Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu Van der Poel, Alpecin Deceunick did not imagine seeing another of his men raise his arms in this tower.
“There is really a lot of emotions, at the end I had this opportunity, I had great legs, I suffered, but I had this victory,” said the sprinter. With rain and cold, I immediately felt good. The Australian could also have added “and without Tadej Pogacar”, because if the Slovenian had decided otherwise not sure that the show would have been the same. Snap as long as it is still possible. Because from Sunday, in Paris, Slovenian could well give a new and final stick.
