With its 249 kilometers, the seventh stage of Tour 2021, the Vierzon-Le Creusot, it just had to be the longest fraction of the last twenty years went Grande Boucle. It was also the craziest, revolutionary and compelling thanks above all to courage of three men: the yellow jersey Mathieu Van Der Poel, his great rival Wout Van Aert and our dear, old Vincenzo Nibali.
Of their crazy competitive fantasy have paid the super favorite Pogacar who lost three and a half minutes from the fabulous pair of cyclocrossists with their UAE in disarray, the whole Ineos and above all Primoz Roglic who sank nine minutes behind the winner (the other Slovenian Matej Mohoric) and over seven from the yellow jersey, paying dearly for the injuries of the previous days’ crash.
Van Der Poel, Van Aert and Nibali have promoted and started a sensational escape for the gap achieved with respect to the group (up to these seven minutes) but above all becauseé do not remember in recent times an attack in which the first (Van Der Poel) and the second (Van Aert) of the general classification were present, two absolute champions. Incredibly, the group with the super favorites Pogacar and Roglic and the battleship Ineos let it go on a treacherous track for the continuous ups and downs that in some points became real classic climbs belga. At first the lack of pursuit seemed to arise from the skirmishes between Ineos and Emirates for who had to take charge of the pursuit, then the fatigue and difficulties of many of the protagonists and their followers emerged.
On the eve of two challenging stages in the Alps, Van Der Poel guida classifies her with 30 ”her Van Aert, 1’49” her Asgreen, 3’01 ”her Mohoric, 3’43” her Pogacar, 4’12 ”her Nibali.
Carapaz and Thomas are over 5 minutes away, Roglic over nine. Now the Grande Boucle suddenly becomes very open and uncertain. On the first alpine climbs both the real condition of Pogacar and the consistency of his team will be evaluated. Van der Poel shouldn’t worry him on very hard routes while much more interesting is the position of Van Aert, who is much better in the mountains and has his Jumbo-Visma completely at his disposal. Nibali, who left to win a stage and then return home, finds himself at the foot of the podium and he certainly won’t pull himself out of battle. In short, a very open race two weeks from the end.
July 2, 2021 (change July 2, 2021 | 17:20)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED