The Real Fight for the Tour de France Is About to Start
That rushing sound you hear is a giant sigh of relief coming from Roubaix, France.
That’s where Stage 9 of the 2018 Tour de France ended today and, along with it, the GC hopes of several riders—chiefly BMC’s Richie Porte, who crashed out 10K in, well before the race hit the cobblestones everyone feared. For most of the rest of the overall contenders, the much-anticipated Roubaix stage ended as a draw. But it was hardly drama-free.
Sunday’s stage was a chaotic, see-saw battle to recover from crashes, flat tires, and other errors. One moment, Romain Bardet was off the back, chasing due to a mechanical. Seemingly the next moment, he was safely back in the main bunch. Then, a flat tire knocked him off the pace again. Mikel Landa crashed late and had to chase hard to limit the losses, while Rigoberto Uran avoided problems until one fateful moment where he had a high-speed dismount and never got back in contact.
Almost every contender had some kind of mishap, including Chris Froome, who crashed despite Team Sky’s firm control over affairs at the front of the bunch. But as the dust cleared at the stage finish, more than a few riders wiped the grime from their bodies and offered a prayer of thanks for making it through relatively unscathed.
As expected, the stage re-ordered the overall classification, but not nearly as much as riders might have feared. Besides Porte, perhaps the biggest loser was Uran, who gave up a minute and a half despite a desperate chase led by teammates Taylor Phinney and Sep Vanmarcke. And spare a thought for Tejay van Garderen, third overall entering the day. Not only did he lose teammate Porte, but several mishaps lost him more than 5 minutes and sent him tumbling down in the standings.
For the rest, it makes sense to assess their position relative to Froome, now in eighth overall. Alejandro Valverde and Jakob Fuglsang finished with the first chase, and each defended his GC position a handful of seconds ahead of Froome. Similarly, Bob Jungels is riding an exceptional Tour so far and has 48 seconds on Froome.
Seven more riders—Landa, Adam Yates, Vincenzo Nibali, Primoz Roglic, Stephen Kruiswijk, Bauke Mollema, and Tom Dumoulin—are within 25 seconds of Froome. Five others—Bardet, Uran, Ilnur Zakarin, Nairo Quintana, and Dan Martin—are all 0:49-1:40 down to the four-time Tour champion.
But it’s not quite as simple as those gaps. We don’t know, for instance, how badly the riders got hurt in Sunday’s crashes. (Landa in particular went down hard.) Key teammates hit the deck as well. Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski crashed hard on a left-hand turn in the cobbles, while Egan Bernal, one of Froome’s prized climbers, fell at least twice and eventually rolled home in the gruppetto, more than 16 minutes down.
Who’s hurt? How bad? Which teams are vulnerable, and which are emboldened? All of that will start to reveal itself on Tuesday. After a much-deserved rest day, the Tour enters the high mountains with a 158.5K Alpine stage. Two summit finishes will follow, including Alpe d’Huez on Thursday. After nine stages, the real fight for the 2018 Tour is about to start.
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