No easy days on the tour
Medium mountains for moderate mountaineers? For some reason I misread the route summary: stage 14 is definitely not flat with KOMs going 3-3-3-3-2 with the finish on top of another airfield on a plateau. It’s flat again tomorrow and then they reach the Pyrenees. So would Stage 14 be a punishing puncheurs day? But who is going to get punched and who’s going to get a puncture? Anyway it’s a nailed-on breakaway stage they said (just like yesterday was a nailed-on bunch sprint until it wasn’t).
Perhaps they would take it easy given how hot it is in the South of France? Oh no – attacks from the off including one from The Pog himself, catching Jumbo-Visma off guard and producing chaos and splits in the peloton and no let up for the first 40 km. Even the TV bikes can’t even find all the favourites for a while. Poor wounded Caleb Ewan is being drafted by the Broom Wagon with 170 km still to go. When the breakaway does form it almost immediately eats itself with more crazy attacks. Another quiet day at the office, Dear?
Buy one get one free
Two races in one. La fuga de la fuga at the front as the strong breakaway fought themselves to bits culminating in Matthews versus Bettiol on the final climb. At one stage nearly 15 minutes (see Tweet of the Day) behind them, the peloton started to wind it up until it was another mano a mano – Tadej marked by Jonas. The stage winner was the shy-and-retiring Michael “Bling” Matthews, while a little later the white jersey could not shake off the yellow.
One Aussie in 1st and another Aussie in 156th scraping in near the cut-off time, along with his Lotto crew. The Combativity prize went to Matthews, but it was Caleb Ewan who probably deserved it more.
Tweet of the DAY
Louis Meintjes in the break was virtually 2nd overall on GC before the peloton got their act together. There was a Tween from the South African champion’s Intermarché team earlier in the stage, when he was 10 minutes ahead:
Tweet: “Jumbo Visma, can we have the yellow jersey, please? We promise to give it back!”
DS for Intermarché – Wanty – Gobert Matériaux
Team of the Day
Don’t Lube your gears with porridge and Conjecture Sauvage both picked today’s stage winner Matthews and included a second rider in the top ten too. Dr James had 6th (Fuglsang – those Danes get everywhere!) while Jim had 7th (Großschartner, the Austrian champion). So this is a rare opportunity to look at the Porridge:
Dr James’ squad have suffered through the withdrawals of Matthieu Van der Poel and Matt Haig as well as the crash of Primo Roglic on the Stage 5 cobbles. But with Matthews, Fuglsang, the underperforming Martinez and Stefan Küng all the in break this was their chance to shine. Sadly still in 16th place in the minileague.
Stat du Jour
We have to revisit the chart of Jerseys and Prizes to find that Hoorah! everyone has now won something, now that Michael Matthews has got the Wild Guessers and the McPorridge Lubers off the mark. It always makes the teacher nervous unless all the children win prizes at Sports Day!
Postcard from Occitania
Samedi le quatorze juillet Mende
In the end the Italian Alberto Bettiol was beaten into second place, but nevertheless today’s postage stamp (from San Marino, but hey! why not?) celebrates the great Italian cyclist Gino Bartali, L’intramontabile (The Timeless), who died in 2020. Amongst his many achievements, one good story is of his triumph in the 1948 Tour de France. On the 14th July, Bartali received a telephone call on the rest day telling him that the Italian Communist Party leader had been shot and that there was fear for a full-scale insurrection:
Italy needed Bartali to do what he best knew how to do, to win stages.
Barnard Chambaz, French historian
He was inspired to win the next three stages 13, 14 and 15 (and 4 others!) to lead the GC by 14 minutes. He took the overall yellow jersey, along with the KOM. When the news reached the Italian parliament, there was such celebration that it is said the warring factions came together and civil war was averted. That maybe disputed, but what is not open to question is his courage in the Italian Resistance during WWII and his sheltering of Jews from the fascists, for which he is named amongst the Righteous Among the Nations. A Good Man. Again … some things are more important than sport.