Stage 13, Friday 22

189 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), 3 km sprint zone, 1″ splits

90% of this stage are flat, but there are two significant yet not very steep climbs about 20 km from the finish. Another Narvaez-compatible stage?

Considering that there wasn’t anything to score for over 150 km (and 150 km of flat), I hadn’t thought that there would be such a battle for the breakaway. Neither would I have believed that it would be one of those days when the breakaway is given 10 minutes.

It was also strange to see most breakaway members always pulling pretty much like maniacs even after they had 9-10 minutes and the peloton had given up long ago, and keep doing that until the climbs. Even stranger, nobody in the 15 riders tried anything in the first climb…

GFDJ were 3 in the right breakaway, out of 15 riders. Their directeur sportif decided that they should ride as if they were Visma/UAE with Vingegaard/Pogatchar: by going full steam ahead as the last climb began, in order to launch their ‘leader’ (Kench🇳🇿). Well, this is basically a suicidal tactic when you are not one of the very few top climbers. Especially when the slope gets steeper as you go near the summit: it naturally gets harder as you progress, without putting yourself in the red zone before it starts getting really hard.

Overall, it is already a miracle that Kench🇳🇿 didn’t blow up more than he did on the last hundreds metres of the climb and on the flat just after the top.

Bettiol (🇮🇹 Astana) was having one of his good days. I had never paid attention to it before, but the guy is nuts when it comes to picking his line on the road: he is constantly too near the walls/signs/spectators for no particular reason, and that close to hit something or someone. Anyway, this was the 3^rd Italian victory in 13 days; not bad.

I don’t know what happened to Scaroni (🇮🇹 Astana). I see he came, not with the first peloton, but in another group 6 minutes later; so he dropped from 13^th to 24^th place in GC.

Stage 10, Tuesday 19

42 km, individual Time Trial (15 pts)

Vingegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) did a mediocre ITT and was exhausted in the final part. It wasn’t his favourite terrain, but still… Perhaps licking handlebars wasn’t such a good idea…

As a result, Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain) manages to keep the Pink jersey. He may keep it until Saturday evening (big mountain stage), as the other stages this week are either for punchers (which suits him) or for sprinters (which doesn’t suit anyone).

Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) loses a hefty amount of time as expected. He exits the podium, perhaps less expectedly, as Arensman (🇳🇱 Ineos) produced a very good performance (2^nd of the stage, even if it was far behind his teammate Ganna🇮🇹).

O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco), Storer (🇦🇺 Tudor) and Gee (🇨🇦 Lidl-Trek) did well or better than expected. At Bora, Pellizzari🇮🇹 and Hindley🇦🇺 didn’t do so well. Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor) lost a lot of time, and is passed in GC by his teammate Storer🇦🇺.

M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF) produced another good performance which allowed him to enter GC top-10. The young fellow is discrete but regular: in top-20 of every stages except when they were sprinters stages.

NB: Milesi (🇮🇹 Movistar) managed to make it into the top-10 of the stage despite having started the TT with his iced vest on… 🧊🧊🧊

Stage 12, Thursday 21

175 km, low difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 2″ splits

This stage was designed to have a breakaway, and then a fight with the peloton for a bunch sprint.

Summary: the sprinters will sue the organiser over the ‘low difficulty’ classification of this stage 😆

Another day with quite many events.

There was some fight for the breakaway, before a stable one formed. But dozens of kilometres later, as things looked settled, the peloton didn’t leave much leeway, fearing that sprinters would have a hard time killing a regular gap, NSN decided to pull the peloton, the breakaway kinda slowed down, and there were counter-attacks and a reconfiguration of the breakaway.

Then Movistar pushed hard in the first climb, as they did one week ago, to get rid of pure sprinters. Groenewegen (🇳🇱 Unibet) was quickly dropped, then Magnier (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS, was he dropped in both climbs or only the 2^nd?); they didn’t push so hard in the second, yet Milan (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) blew up near the summit.

Milan🇮🇹 and Magnier🇫🇷 quickly regrouped near the summit, with Van Uden (🇳🇱 Picnic) as well, so everyone thought that they could more or less easily catch the peloton who was just like 45-55 seconds ahead. The “or less easily” was because of the profile that wasn’t so favourable as it could have been.

But two things happened: 1. Movistar got the support of NSN and then EF too. 2. Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QS didn’t want or couldn’t assign a significant workforce to the Milan/Magnier group. So they never made it back.

Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain) and O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco) did the Time Bonus sprint 13 km from the finish line: they got 6 and 4 free seconds without any effort. Why not? The Portuguese has now a bit over 30 seconds of advantage against Vingegaard to keep the Pink jersey as long as possible, and the Australian got a little bit closer to Gall in GC.

Then curiously, it was Visma leading the pack. Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) attacked in a tiny wall 7 km from the line, but he was joined by Arrieta (🇪🇸 UAE), which pissed the Italian as he wouldn’t relay :)

Poor Ben Turner (🇬🇧 Ineos), the last sprinter, was dropped just 4 kilometres from the line. He had got a puncture 10 km earlier, causing a difficult chase to come back, after all the previous efforts. He had managed to come back, but he was exhausted.

Segaert (🇧🇪 Bahrain) broke away in a curve 3 km from the line. Behind, the teams (Movistar, NSN, EF) which had produced all the previous efforts to get rid of sprinters had disappeared; Milesi (🇮🇹 Movistar) and a Soudal tried to counter-attack instead of pulling the peloton. Tudor and Uno-X appeared but very late. Too late.

Behind Segaert🇧🇪, the peloton’s sprint was won by 2 surprises: Toon Aerts (🇧🇪 Lotto) before Guillermo Silva (🇺🇾 Astana). There were only 60 riders left in that peloton.

The teams who did all the work only got 4^th (Vernon 🇬🇧 NSN), 6^th (Aular 🇻🇪 Movistar) and 7^th (Mihkels 🇪🇪 EF).

The team who abandoned Magnier🇫🇷 only got 5^th with Stuyven🇧🇪.

Uno-X and Tudor only got 10^th and 17^th…

Stage 11, Wednesday 20

195 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), 3 km sprint zone, 1″ splits

The first half of the stage may see a struggle between a breakaway and sprinters for the I.S. Then the second half is for punchers, inside a breakaway or not.

Ciccone🇮🇹 has truly turned into the Pinot🇫🇷 of his last years: he always gets angry at riders from other teams who do not make everything they can to make him win, on the day he has decided to win…

Meanwhile, Narvaez🇪🇨 still manages to find a boatload of wallies to ride for him and his 3^rd victory in 8 stages, despite not hiding his intentions and his form. Wonderful. As usual, if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, call Mas🇪🇸 and he will drive you home; the guy is more reliable than Europ Assistance…

Anyway, the fight for breakaways was constant. The first breakaway was initiated by FDJs, they were 3 in it, but 2 of them including the one who started it were dropped after a while… UAE missed that one and also the second main. They had to launch a late counter-attack with Narvaez🇪🇨, and it wasn’t easy for that new group to join the first group.

Astana… Scaroni🇮🇹 crashed in a descent, tripping over Zana🇮🇹 whose crash may have itself been caused by Van EEtvelt🇧🇪’s crash. He wasn’t very far and for 40 km (!) he tried hard to get back in the front group. But in that group, his teammate Ulissi🇮🇹 was relaying, pulling and even attacking once, right on a occasion when Scaroni🇮🇹 was only like 10 seconds away and could finally join them…

There were surprising moves by a couple of riders from the peloton in the last climb: Gualdi (🇮🇹 Lotto) and Raccagni (🇮🇹 Soudal). Like they wanted to score UCI points. Or as a matter of principle because their teammates who were in the breakaway had been caught after their crash, perhaps. They managed to break away from the peloton and stay ahead of him.

The commentators couldn’t understand why Poels🇳🇱 would sprint at the peloton’s front. For me, it is simply because Unibet is on a mission for UCI points, and it brought 15 very easy points. (That’s more than a stage victory on a 2.1!)

Stage 15, Sunday 24

157 km, no difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 3″ splits

The stage to Milano, kept short and purely flat, is made for sprinters.

And yet, they managed to fail! Will Magnier (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) complain today about Polti not letting him win, like he complained about Movistar the other day? 😜

I am sad for Maestri (🇮🇹 Polti), a very generous rider, who can’t manage to get one first pro victory, despite having a rather good sprint. I think he should have stayed in Dvernes’s (🇳🇴 Uno-X) when the Dane launches instead of going in parallel with him; there was a lot of available time to stay there before attempting to take over. That’s a mistake I see a lot this year.

This stage still brings a ton of points to the Polti team, but…

And Visma demanding that the times are frozen 16 km from the line…

GEE CEE within 1:40 of the podium!!! this isn’t even his final form… he will only get stronger in the last week!!