Until this Sunday afternoon, the last time Bob Jungels had raised his arms on a finish line was three years ago, on Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. The Luxembourger was then a member of the prestigious Belgian team Quick-Step and was coming out of a season which had notably seen him win Liège-Bastogne-Liège, one of the five monuments of cycling. Since then, a signature with the French AG2R and then nothing. A very long drought which the 29-year-old rider ended this Sunday by winning the ninth stage of the Tour 2022 in the mountain resort of Châtel – Portes du Soleil.
A success built on the pedal at the end of a long solitary journey. Because Jungels pressed the detonator more than 60 kilometers from the finish, in the Col de la Croix, extracting himself from the breakaway of the day, made up of around twenty runners. After a high-flying descent, the Luxembourger approached the last difficulty of the day, the Pas de Morgins, with more than a minute ahead of his pursuers.
Back after artery surgery
It is in this ramp that one of the most beautiful sequences since the start of the Tour has taken place, with the air of arm wrestling. Shortly after the start of the climb, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama FDJ) left what was left of the original breakaway to chase the Luxembourger. Very quickly, the gap began to melt like alpine snow in the July sun. Then the Frenchman saw himself chased by a duo of Spaniards: the goat Carlos Verona (Movistar) and the roller Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos). This double pursuit will have kept the spectator in suspense until the end, all with the peloton of favorites less than two minutes away. Finally, if Pinot managed to get closer to less than thirty seconds from Jungels, the less pronounced slopes in the final were favorable to the Luxembourger.
By crossing the line, Bob Jungels signs a victory with the air of revenge. When most thought he was finished for the highest level, he had given him an explanation for his crossing of the desert: an external iliac endofibrosis, a disease which required an operation on his arteries in the spring of 2021. “This problem, this injury had a lot of consequences, physical of course, but also mental, he confided to Luxembourg independent dailylast summer. It wasn’t very obvious. These last two years, I was no longer the same runner, it’s destabilizing. You don’t sleep well. You are not yourself. To achieve and start from scratch, it takes time. It will have been necessary to rebuild, resume training and show some reassuring signs, such as his sixth place in the last Tour of Switzerland, in June, or his national title in the time trial a week later.
As for the favorites, Tadej Pogacar continues his path in yellow, having allowed himself the luxury of grabbing a few seconds from most of his opponents on the line. As on the Belles Filles board, only the Dane Jonas Vingegaard managed to finish in the same time as him.