The days go by and are not alike … After a breathless first week on the roads of the Tour de France, the double ascent of Mont Ventoux (Vaucluse) and the beautiful breakaway the day before, the 13e stage between Nîmes and Carcassonne was for the most part as flat as its route. On the program for this Friday, July 9: 220 kilometers of flat – so -, with only one small difficulty listed at the start of the route, the Pic-Saint-Loup hill (category 4).
The peloton, as if taken from idleness, gave the impression of filling, up to 40 km from the finish, a crossword puzzle to pass the time. One step for squared papers. Definition of the day in five letters? Boredom. Definition of victory in nine letters? Cavendish.
As we suspected, the day ended with a massive sprint during which the Briton Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-Quick Step) won – again – winning his fourth victory in this Grande Boucle, the 34e of his career – on par with Belgian legend Eddy Merckx. “I don’t think anyone will ever be able to compare me to him. He remains the greatest cyclist of all time ”, will react the “Cav” after the arrival.
“I am so dead: 220 km in this heat, in this wind. I went very far, very far. The boys were amazing. I can not believe it… “ Cavendish owes his victory to his teammates in the “wolfpack” and more particularly to his “pilot fish”, the Dane Michael Morkov, impressive in the final. He also finished second in the stage.
Thirty runners ashore
Is the man of Man becoming an outrage against common sense? Or more directly the Deceunink-Quick-Step? The Tour rack is too small to hold Mark Cavendish’s victories. He is no longer a runner but the man-cannon. One can just hope that the Pyrenees will pass at least a slight electric current in a padlocked race before the last week.
No change in the general classification at the end of this day: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates) retains his yellow jersey, the Colombian Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-Nippo) remains second and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), third. The first Frenchman, Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), is ninth.
Three men all the same agitated this day: the American Sean Bennett (Qhubeka NextHash), the Israeli Omer Goldstein (Israel Start-Up Nation) and the French Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies). While they had hardly any chance of contesting the final victory, they surrendered blow for blow, during a day which counted butter for the general. Then it was Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels p / b KTM) to try his luck. None of them was ever more than four minutes ahead of the field and, 20 kilometers from the line, everyone was back warm.
The fact of the race, which could have been infinitely more dramatic, occurred at the back of the peloton about sixty kilometers from the finish. A left turn, gravel, then chaos. A massive fall – the origin of which is not well understood – brings thirty runners to the ground. Among them: Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R-Citroën), Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsic), Tim Declercq (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Simon Yates (BikeExchange), Geraint Thomas (Ineos-Grenadiers) or even Casper Pedersen (DSM)… Soren Kragh Andersen (DSM) ended up in the ravine.
A sparse platoon
To think that we feared the roundabouts, which were so formidable in the first week. Because, did you know? this thirteenth stage will go down in history for at least a little to be the one containing the most roundabouts since 1996 – ninety-seven anyway!
The ranks of the entrants continue to thin out, with thirty-three withdrawals at the end of the 13e step. Austrian Michael Gogl (Qhubeka-NextHash) did not start this Friday, while German Roger Kluge (Lotto-Soudal), Briton Simon Yates and his teammate Australian Lucas Hamilton, all three victims of the massive fall, gave up.
There are now only 151 riders in contention and only seven of the twenty-three teams still complete: UAE-Emirates, Israel Start-Up Nation, Trek-Segafredo, Deceuninck-Quick Step, Cofidis, EF-Nippo and TotalEnergies. BikeExchange, which could boast of having its eight men still in the race this morning, ends the day at six. The teams most affected by withdrawals and delays are Groupama-FDJ and Lotto-Soudal, which only have four riders in their ranks.
Tomorrow, the day should be a little more lively with 184 km of rugged route between Carcassonne and Quillan (Aude), ideal for backpackers, before attacking the mountains and the Pyrenees.
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