Home yellow jersey, Belgian Wout van Aert, like the rest of the Tour de France peloton, started at 12:16 p.m. Thursday from Binche, Belgium, for the 6th stage, to Longwy, the longest with 220 kilometers to go, from the Belgian Ardennes to Meurthe-et-Moselle.
The day after the unexpected rescue of his golden fabric, Wout van Aert was able to show off the yellow jersey to his compatriots in the ramparts of Binche. Leader for 13 seconds in the general classification, will he keep it on arrival in Longwy, at the top of another citadel? Like almost all terrains, the finale suits him.
Like in 2017 when Peter Sagan won, even if he had taken his shoes off, the finish is judged at the top of the Côte des Religieuses (1.6 km at 5.8%). But new added this year, a raid of 800 meters at 12% will strain the sprinters. What may deter their teams from working, especially after a grueling day on Wednesday, believes another Belgian, Philippe Gilbert, whose leader, capable of crossing this type of final, Caleb Ewan, fell.
“After a nervous stage yesterday, the peloton surely wants to breathe. It may be time for a breakaway to pull out of the game”, judges the 2012 world champion. Response around 5:29 p.m. (time calculated at 42 km /h average).
Greeted by the other king of the Belgians, Eddy Merckx, at the start village, the 173 survivors of the crashes the day before on the cobblestones between Lille and Arenberg, took the route of the semi-classic Belgian Binche-Chimay-Binche at the start of the day.
Missing is the Italian Daniel Oss, teammate of Peter Sagan, who hit a spectator on Wednesday in a cobbled area. He suffers from “a crack in a cervical vertebra” according to TotalEnergies team boss Jean-René Bernaudeau.
