“Tadej, what are we doing? » The peloton only covered a few tens of kilometers during this 5e stage of the Tour de France, Wednesday July 5, that Tadej Pogacar and his teammates are already in a meeting. A few hours later, on arrival in Laruns (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), the UAE Emirates team must be wondering what has fallen on its head. Adam Yates gave up his yellow jersey to the winner of the day, the Australian Jai Hindley. The Slovenian is already almost a minute behind in the general classification on his main rival, Jonas Vingegaard.
Unsurprisingly, the start of the day was hectic. The riders were making their first foray into the mountains and many of them wanted to slip into the breakaway. Among them, several Jumbo-Visma, the formation of the Danish winner of the 2022 edition and again big favorite this year. Jai Hindley too. And the Australian from Bora-Hansgrohe, who won the Tour of Italy last year, is a candidate for yellow in Paris.
Present at the front for a good part of the 163 kilometers from Pau to Laruns, he ended up getting rid of his last sidekick, the Austrian Felix Gall (AG2R-Citroën), two kilometers from the top of the Col de Marie- Blanque (7.7 kilometers at 8.6%, 1D category), the last ascent of the day. The 27-year-old climber offers himself a first success on the Grande Boucle from his first participation. “It’s incredible, I don’t have the words. Guys [de l’équipe] were shouting into the radio”, he said.
Frantic pace in the peloton
Wednesday evening, the smile of the Australian contrasted with the dejection of Tadej Pogacar. The double winner of the event (2020, 2021) already accuses 1 min 40 behind the leader of the general classification, to which he now points in 6e position. But more than the Bora-Hansgrohe rider, it is his runner-up, Jonas Vingegaard, that the Slovenian has in his sights. The latter already showing a considerable delay of 53 seconds on his Danish rival.
Determined not to let any contender for the podium take off in this stage, his troops had nevertheless imposed a frantic pace on the peloton… “We put pressure on the UAE team, who rode hard all day to keep an acceptable distance [avec Jai Hindley] »explained Wout van Aert, at the forefront for a very long part of the day and elected combative of the day.
However, by the own admission of its sporting director, Grischa Niermann, the Jumbo-Visma had not planned to embark in its wake a favorite for the general classification such as Jai Hindley – “I improvised and found myself in this group”has also specified the winner of the day. “The plan was to have several guys in the breakaway, argued Jonas Vingegaard. When [les équipiers de Pogacar] started picking up the pace on the last climb, I felt I had good legs. I told Sepp Kuss to go ahead. He did and then I decided to attack. »
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