There are only three stages left in the 2024 Tour de France, and of the five riders currently lying highest on GC, veteran Soudal-QuickStep racer Mikel Landa is perhaps the one that surprises the most.
While the Basque star, fifth overall at 13:24 behind leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), confirmed on Thursday that he is doing much better than he expected, he also insisted, perhaps surprisingly, that his 2024 Tour form is not as good as it has been in previous July editions.
“I’m doing well, I’m enjoying it, and I’m well up there,” he told a small group of reporters before stage 18. “But I came here with the idea of just helping Remco. However, little by little I got up there in the GC and my current placing is better now than I expected.”
Fourth in the 2017 Tour de France, he came within a whisker of making the podium but was pipped to the post in the final time trial by Romain Bardet. Landa insisted that despite currently being in such hallowed company as Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the top five currently, not to mention his own teammate Evenepoel in third, “this is not really my best Tour. I came to other Tours in better shape".
“2017 was good, but so were 2018 and 2019, too if you don’t judge it all on the results. Back then I was more ambitious, I was more in the fight for the race, I attacked more too,” he explained.
“This year," he added a shade ruefully, "all I’m doing is chasing down the others.”
Landa was satisfied, all the same, given the current record-breaking average speed of the Tour, and the much more aggressive style of Grand Tour racing in general, which has caused many of his contemporaries to quietly shelve the idea of fighting for the overall. And for all he is now 34, Landa nonetheless remains in the GC fray, while still holding down a key team role as Remco’s key lieutenant for the climbing stages.
“That’s true, the years go by and I’m still up there,” Landa recognised, “close to the top names.”
As for how he views Soudal-QuickStep’s strategy for the last few days of the Tour, with two enormous mountain stages and a very tough final time trial still to come.
“A lot will depend on how UAE Team Emirates and Visma opt to play the race, and we’ll have to react to that," he said. "We have to stay close, be watchful and if Vingegaard has a bad day or makes a mistake, try to make the most of it to put Remco up a step on the podium.”
Stage 19 includes a rare ascent to 2,800 metres above sea level at the summit of the Bonette-Restefond, a height only occasionally reached by the Tour and the 'ceiling' of this year's race.
“We do a lot of altitude training these days so most of the riders are fairly used to those kinds of heights. But for sure that’ll do some damage, too, just like when we went over the Galibier on stage 4," Landa recognised, noting another Alpine monster climb which peaked out at 2,642 metres above sea level in the first week.
Priority with Evenepoel
Landa’s excellent position overall could present Soudal-QuickStep with something of a GC dilemma regarding whether they will defend his position in the dying days of the Tour as well as focussing on Evenepoel. But the Basque says that while his fifth place is a valued asset for the Belgian squad, Evenepoel’s podium battle logically takes precedence.
“My priority is to help Remco, and try to ensure he finishes as high as possible on the podium. But I’m thinking about that fourth place too, and I’ll try to finish as close as I can to it in Nice.
“Rather than the climbs, the key day for Remco could well be the [stage 21] time trial. However, he could get some time back then, too, so the closer he is to Vingegaard beforehand, the better.”
Landa has been and still is a hugely important part of the Soudal-QuickStep line-up in this year’s Tour, particularly in the two tough climbing stages to come. But such is Evenepoel's quickness to learn that Landa says another role he formerly had, that of giving Remco advice on Grand Tour strategy, is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
“The race itself is teaching him about how to handle his strength and calculate what to do," Landa said. "I think the race is teaching him more than I could do.”
Landa's own unfettered GC options, in any case, will come in the Vuelta a España - which Evenepoel is not racing - and unsurprisingly given his excellent Tour de France to date, Landa is increasingly optimistic.
“I think it’ll be a good race for me,” he said. “From what I can see here in the Tour, I’m going to get there in good shape.”
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