Hello France ! The Tour leaves Tuesday from the north of the country, after the Danish prelude to great festive and popular success, with a yellow jersey, the Belgian Wout van Aert, which perfectly suits the double title holder and favorite Tadej Pogacar.
An ideal scenario for the outgoing winner? The Danish sequence, three days of racing, went well for the young Slovenian (23), apart from a few scratches inherited from the collective fall in the final of the second stage.
Third in the general classification, he is 14 seconds behind van Aert, but is 8 and 9 seconds ahead of his first rivals from the Jumbo team, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard and the Slovenian Primoz Roglic.
“If I have to make a first assessment, I will say that everything went well, I feel good”, admitted the 2020 and 2021 winner. His rank relieves him of control of the race and his placement during the stages on Saturday and Sunday reveal his ease: he asks his UAE team at least, while waiting for the more difficult and above all riskier days.
– A week under tension –
Three days and as many stages for the benefit of classics: the start, Tuesday, in the Boulonnais mountains, the cobblestones the next day before the arrival in Arenberg, the final for punchers finally on the road to Longwy on Thursday.
“A classic per day is a formula that has been said for several years in the Tour”, recalls its director Christian Prudhomme. “But it all depends on what the riders do with it. Of course, if Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel team up as they did on the road to Le Creusot last year, it gives a race sparkling for the fans… and exhausting for the runners”.
Provided also that the weather favors the attacks, at the very least does not discourage them… The formula of the race director Thierry Gouvenou (“the organizers propose, the riders have, the weather imposes”) was verified on Saturday in the end of the 2nd stage, crossing the bridge overhanging the Great Belt. The wind blowing at almost 46 km/h on the bridge spanning the strait did more than hinder the progress of the race, it immediately annihilated any attempt at an offensive.
For the next two days, the weather forecast is for mild and sunny weather. But cobblestones complicate the deal when the inherent risks (fall, mechanical incident, etc.) are multiplied.
Is this too great a risk in the context of the Tour? The debate is revived each time. “The cobblestones are part of the complete panoply of the cyclist”, answers Thierry Gouvenou, the designer of the course.
“The cobblestones have existed for a long time in Belgium, in France. They have long been erased from the Tour de France, but they have their place. This year, we have a very complete Tour: the wind, the hills for punchers, the big passes, the time trials and also the cobblestones”.
– The hares of van Aert –
For van Aert, the cobblestone stage adds a possible additional credit to his capital time. Second in Paris-Roubaix in April, when he was recovering from Covid-19, the Belgian is the flagship of his team on this ground. With, at stake, the question of his role, between the protection of the Vingegaard-Roglic duo and his personal ambition to consolidate the yellow jersey, secure the green jersey in the points classification and play for the stage victory.
If van Aert got the green light for his quest for the green jersey, the team is not built for this objective, repeat the managers of Jumbo who are still chasing the final victory in the Tour. But the trauma of 2020, Roglic’s failure in the time trial of the Planche des Belles Filles on the eve of the finish, is still in everyone’s mind.
How to combine all the ambitions? Everything actually depends on van Aert, who devoted himself to the cause of Roglic in Paris-Nice in March then in the Dauphiné in early June. The Belgian knows how to do everything, but an ancestral saying reminds us of the danger of running several hares at the same time.
