“It’s a stage of the Tour of the Basque Country, but with riders from the Tour de France. » Saturday 1er July, a few minutes before the peloton starts the 110e Grande Boucle, in Bilbao (Spain), Philippe Mauduit anticipated that the first day of the event would not be easy. As an appetizer, the 176 runners had to cover 182 kilometers with five difficulties listed on the steep and winding roads of the region. And the sporting director of Groupama-FDJ summarizes: on the spring event, “There are ten of them who can play for the win. There, we have 176 dead of starvation ”.
Starting with the Yates twins, who give this 2023 edition its first great story. At the finish, Adam leads Simon (Jayco-AlUla) by four seconds, after having spent the last eight kilometers in a duo at the front. Something to delight their parents, who are following the peloton this year in motorhomes: their sons achieve the first double of a sibling on the event since Andy and Fränk Schleck in 2011; before them, only Henri and Francis Pélissier had achieved this feat. Adam takes his revenge on his brother who had beaten him ten years ago during the 5e stage of the Tour de l’Avenir.
The British team-mate of Tadej Pogacar at the UAE Emirates signs the first victory of his career on a Grand Tour and puts on the yellow jersey. The native of Bury, in the north of England, had already worn it for four days, in 2020; but this time is “a bit different”he confesses. “The last time was the year of Covid-19, Julian Alaphilippe [alors leader au général] had received a penalty and I had recovered it. Now, I really feel like I deserve it. »
Another runner raised his arms as he crossed the line: Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian only finished third, but, he explains, with a broad smile on his face, “It’s a team victory and it’s like I won, it’s an even better feeling. All year round the guys work for me”. The double winner of the Tour has made no secret of his desire to recover his crown, ceded last year to Jonas Vingegaard, and his ambitions are not unrelated to the success of his teammate.
“The tactic was simple, we wanted to put Tadej in a good position at the foot of the last hills”, revealed Adam Yates. And in the final ascent, the Pike coast (2 kilometers at 10%), the UAE Emirates accelerated. On a crowded road – or rather orange in the colors of the local Euskaltel-Euskadi team – Pogacar broke away, followed initially by Vingegaard and Frenchman Victor Lafay (Cofidis). Then, his British teammate took advantage of a regrouping at the front, at the start of the dive towards Bilbao, to exfiltrate.
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