2023-07-14 17:25:12
The Pole from Ineos-Grenadiers won a prestigious victory this Friday, July 14, while the Slocene grabbed some time in the Danish yellow jersey. The duo is only separated by 9 seconds.
At the Grand Colombier, on July 14, the overall leaders did not want to party too much. Fifteen courageous people tried to start very early in the stage, to get as far ahead as possible. At the foot of the Jura summit, the only real difficulty of the day, Quentin Pacher, Maxim Van Gils, Michal Kwiatkowski and the others had barely four minutes in advance. In the event of a big battle between the leaders, that would not have been enough, but this Friday, the Pole of Ineos-Grenadiers, Michal Kwiatkowski, was able to extricate himself quickly and was never caught. At 33, he signs a prestigious victory at the top of one of the hardest peaks in France, only on the map of the event since 2012.
As for the leaders, as often in the calm stages for the most part and with a long final climb, 17.4 kilometers at 7.1%, the selection was made from behind. Very quickly Ben O’Connor and Egan Bernal, in difficulty since the start of the Tour, were left behind by a group led by Tadej Pogacar’s team, UAE Emirates. More surprisingly, Romain Bardet cracked a few minutes later. The French not being at the party, Valentin Madouas, Thibaut Pinot and Guillaume Martin, tired of their epic the day before, quickly followed. David Gaudu was the last to crack, 2 kilometers from the finish.
A few hundred from the line, where the slope was steep again, Pogacar attacked violently, to grab four seconds from Jonas Vingegaard, as usual, also taking advantage of the bonuses for third place. The Dane from the Jumbo keeps his jersey for only 9 seconds. Nothing is decided before the next two days in the Alps.
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