Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) was rewarded for an attacking
ride on the Tour de France today with a trip to the podium for the combativity
award.
He was one of two Irishmen involved in the stage-end
ceremonies as Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quickstep) retained, and extended, his
lead in the points classification.
Roche deliberately lost time yesterday to make sure he’d be given some leeway to go in the breakaways and that policy paid off today when he escaped in the move that animated the 191km staged from Le Teil to Mont Aigoual.
Indeed, Roche was the man who started the breakaway and
while it took some very hard riding in the first hour to ensure they got clear,
once the elastic snapped their lead shot up to six minutes.
Unfortunately for the Irishman the composition of the
breakaway was one of the most impressive you will ever see on a Grand Tour and
taking the win was going to be a tall order for any of them.
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In that move with Roche were: Neilson Powless (EF Pro
Cycling), Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT), Daniel Oss (Bora-hansgrohe), Rémi Cavagna
(Deceuninck-Quick Step), Greg Van Avermaet (CCC), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) and
Alexey Lutsenko (Astana).
Inside the last hour of racing, and with two climbs still
to come including the summit finish, the gap was below three minutes and it looked
like the leaders might be swallowed up.
However, on the Col de la Lusette with 17km remaining
Lutsenko lit it up and took Powless with him.
Those two, along with Herrada and Van Avermaet, behind
them would prove the only survivors from the breakaway, with Lutsenko dropping
Powless some 4km from the finish and taking the stage victory.
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Herrada set off in pursuit of Lutsenko but couldn’t catch
him and had to be content with 2nd while Van Avermaet caught Powless and took 3rd
place from him.
For his part, Roche looked strong during the stage and when Lutsenko initially split the breakaway on the penultimate climb, the Irish rider made the front group of five.
However, he was then caught out by another surge from
Lutsenko on the climb and lost contact, being caught by the general classification
group with about 8km to go.
Roche eventually finished in 56th some 7:02 down on
Lutsenko. The Irish cyclist scored climbers’ classification points and is now 3rd
in that competition.
He is within striking distance of taking that jersey if
he could get up the road again in the next day or two.
Dan Martin (Israel Start Up Nation) finished in 71st
place at 16:47 while Sam Bennett was 169th, at 31:09 though remains
in the green points classification jersey.
In the overall, all of the favourites were in a near 30-man
group just under three minutes down. And while Julian Alaphilippe stole two
seconds from that group right at the end, it was nowhere near enough to recoup
the 20 seconds he lost in a time penalty yesterday for a late feed.
It means Adam Yates (Mitchelton Scott) remains in the
yellow jersey some three seconds up on Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in 3rd at seven seconds.
Tomorrow’s stage 7, some 168km from
Millau to Lavaur, should be one for Bennett to target a win as the climbs are
modest and they come early in the day.
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