The first rest day of the 2023 Tour de France arrives and there are many riders and teams already marked by the opening nine stages. Billed as the hardest start to a TdF for many years, the race has certainly been difficult. However, in terms of tactics, it’s not been as spectacular as we could have expected.
Only one early breakaway has succeeded, which is quite a rare occurrence given the desperation that’s beginning to show for some squads who don’t have a general classification interest and whose sprinter hasn’t met expectations.
I can’t imagine the Belgian media are going easy on Soudal-QuickStep or Lotto-Dstny in their reporting and if it wasn’t for Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) then the stick Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) will be getting for not a winning a stage yet would be even bigger.
The latter could point out he’s Belgium’s leading rider on GC in 25th position, however, I imagine that would only add to the woes and the brutal headlines that Patrick Lefevere will be seeing.
The biggest disaster of the week is, of course, the loss of Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) in his last Tour, joint record holder of stage wins and the beacon of the Astana team who now have to regroup and wonder what they’re going to get out of the next two weeks of racing.
You could say the same of Movistar now that Enric Mas didn’t get out of the Basque Country before being involved in a crash but now they have an unexpected amount of freedom to go in the attacks, which is exactly what Matteo Jorgenson did when he almost pulled off a spectacular win on stage 9. Being mugged by Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) on the slopes of Puy de Dôme was cruel, but then the Tour isn’t exactly a polite environment.
Britain goes into the rest day with three riders in the top ten which is quite remarkable in itself given the Yates twins and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) have all had very different pre-Tour results. Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) has been better than we have seen for a long time, Simon (Jayco AlUla) has been hiding away after abandoning early in Romandie while Pidcock has amused himself with a bit of mountain biking, but now they’re solidly in the fifth to seventh places and certainly in with a chance of a podium place.
The main disappointments after being competitive in the opening stages are Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) whilst Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroën) has been getting worse as the days go by so at least he and his team are under no illusions of the coming days.
Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) has been floating around doing his own thing and with the assistance given to Gaudu on the stage 9 finish I can well imagine those roles being reversed. Unlike Cavendish, I can’t see Pinot revisiting his retirement plans whatever happens.
The fight for yellow
Now to the tactical plans of the main players, UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma. In the battle of the big two Tadej Pogačar started off harvesting as many bonus seconds as he could and with Adam Yates taking the first Yellow Jersey UAE looked in command of the GC battle.
However, they may have underestimated the response from Vingegaard, who had up until the Col de Marie Blanque on stage 5 been content to cover but not collaborate with any Pogačar attacks.
Suddenly the impetuousness of the Slovenian was questioned and it was Jumbo who were back in control of things. Losing a minute, Pogačar looked suspect. But that was forgetting his powers of recovery, and just how deep Vingegaard had to go to take that time.
Add to the equation the emergence of the 2022 Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) as the new race leader after the fifth stage and suddenly we had another team in the mix too.
However, the Tourmalet showed the Australian’s inexperience at this level when he tried to follow the two pre-race favourites on the ramp out of La Mongie, 4km from the top of the famous climb. He blew up, resulting in him tumbling back into the clutches of the group that was racing for the third step on the podium.
Vingegaard tried to shake off Pogačar when Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) finally pulled over but couldn’t and then committed to distancing Hindley and the promise of the maillot jaune at the line.
Van Aert did his usual locomotive impersonation until the foot of the final climb of Cauterets-Cambasque after being in the break all day and then Jumbo assumed that the defending champion would ride away from Pogačar somewhere near the top.
Except the young Slovenian had kept calm and remained patient until he sensed the Dane was slowing and off he sped to the stage win and the GC battle was back on.
Jumbo, much as UAE had done, presumed they were in complete control. Though it was never going to be a formality, they had seen a weakness and exploited it to perfection.
Now with Pogačar taking more seconds back from Vingegaard on the Puy de Dôme, the type of terrain which suits the race leader more, the momentum is with Team UAE and the Dutch squad are going to be looking at how they manage their resources in the middle week with three transition stages where they can rely on an escapee surviving and hoovering up the bonus seconds.
But then comes a trio of big mountain challenges from Friday onwards which will give another indication of how this fascinating struggle is going to play out between the last two victors of the Tour.
That other Victor, Lafay (Cofidis), has disappeared from view, but much like for Ineos the second week presents a number of opportunities to those willing to provoke something from afar.
I doubt Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Pidcock will be given much leeway from the GC contenders riding for a top-five finish, however, they’ll all be wary of the descents that are coming in those big mountain stages and remember just how fast Pidcock can negotiate them.
There aren’t any days for the sprint teams for the next six stages so Alpecin-Deceuninck can have a break and unleash Mathieu van der Poel, no doubt in the company of his rival Van Aert who seems slightly less brilliant than last year. However, comparisons with 2022 are tricky as he was simply exceptional everywhere. Now he’s only outstanding and frustrated by a few errors.
That won’t last.
