Nicolas Roche up the road on stage 15 of the Tour de France today. The French were again pressing via Thibaut Pinot, though British rider Adam Yates won the day
Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin went on the attack on stage 15 of the Tour de France today, which took the riders 185km from Limoux to Foix.
Their challenge ultimately fell away, on a day when the breakaway continued to shatter and regroup and with Simon Yates attacking from the leading group to win.
The Mitchelton-Scott rider took his second victory after riding a brilliant final climb to the summit finish; attacking the mountain virtually from base to summit and looking unshakable.
In the end he eased off a little to enjoy his moment and that ensured the next riders on the road were a lot closer to him on the line than they had been up the climb.
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And it was just behind winner Yates that the huge racing occurred today; some of the best we have seen at a Grand Tour for years.
It was Thibaut Pinot of Groupama FDJ who made the running; attacking again and again until he had dropped all of his rivals.
Pinot’s first real surge on the climb, with 6km to go, saw Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) distanced, though not by way of the implosion that had beset him yesterday.
However, while Pinot looked so impressive the Team Ineos
climber Egan Bernal and race leader Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep)
couldn’t be shaken; not initially anyway.
But as the final climb continued, Pinot was relentless
and eventually he dropped Alaphilippe, though the race leader fought all the
way to the line and retained yellow.
Eventually only Bernal could stay with Pinot but in times even he was forced into submission.
Pinot picked up Mikel Landa (Movistar), who had attacked
after Yates, and finished with him; Pinot 2nd and Landa 3rd some 33 seconds
behind Yates.
Then, a further 18 seconds back, came Emanuel Buchmann
(Bora-hansgrohe) with Bernal.
Lennard Kämna (Team Sunweb), the second survivor from the breakaway to finish, was in 6th place and 1:03 off Yates.
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Geraint Thomas attacked the remains of the select group
some 2km from the finish and from that point he looked strong; drilling it all
the way to the line.
However, at the finish he was 7th at 1:22 and some 49
seconds down on Pinot. Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) and Alejandro Valverde
(Movistar) were with Thomas, placing 8th and 9th.
Alaphilippe was back in 11th place,
having fought as hard as possible from the moment Pinot began attacking some
6km from the finish.
He retained the yellow but today looked
worrying for him; the first time on this Tour he had looked out of his depth.
He was 1:49 down on Yates and ceded 1:16 to Pinot and 37 seconds to Geraint Thomas.
In the overall standings Alaphilippe
still leads; by 1:35 over Thomas and 1:47 over Kruijswijk.
Pinot is now up to 4th, some 1:50 off yellow but now only
15 seconds of Thomas in 2nd place and just three seconds off Kruijswijk in 3rd.
Early on the stage Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) and
Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) had gone clear in a star-studded large breakaway.
Some of those with the Irish cousins were: eventual
winner Yates, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Nairo Quintana (Movistar),
Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) and Michael
Woods (EF Education First).
Roche rode very strongly when the breakaway first began
to fracture. However, both he and Martin, and the rest of the breakaway bar
Yates and Kämna, were swallowed up by those behind.
In the end Dan Martin came home in 21st place at 3:38 and is now up to 15th overall. Roche was 64th at 24:30.
The riders have a rest day tomorrow before the difficult final week.
The momentum is with Pinot but Thomas looked much better
today even though he was on the back foot again.
Alaphilippe now looks on the edge of his resources and has no team to help him in the finales; something Thomas had today thanks to Wout Poels.
Meanwhile, Kruijswijk looks the best he has ever done and
is the dark horse. A fascinating week awaits.
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