Patrick Konrad lifts his arms for the first time on the Grande Boucle

After a day’s break, the Tour de France peloton hit the road for the third – and final – week of racing. The 145 riders took the start, Tuesday July 13, from Pas de la Casa, in Andorra, towards Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne). With its four climbs – the Col de Port (2^e category), the collar of the Core (1^re cat.), the Portet-d’Aspet pass (2^e cat.) and the Aspret-Sarrat coast (4^e cat.), this 16^e stage was promised to the backpackers.

Like Sunday, nothing has changed in the general classification: the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates) remains in yellow. The victory went to a “modest”, a “without rank”. The almost unknown of the day is the Austrian Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe), who triumphs after a long and valiant breakaway. Whoever wants to enter the pantheon of Tour victories. Patrick Konrad, on a tasteless day, all the same cooked his victory on his own, the first on the Grand Boucle. He can taste it.

Especially since Tuesday was shaping up to be gloomy, cold, rainy … It caused a few coughing fits in the crypt of the Tour, especially when the Italian sprinter Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Victorious) melted, in the last hectometers of the col du Portet-d’Aspet, on the Breton climber David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), who still imagined swallowing Konrad, alone in the lead at 7 km from the finish. Finding Colbrelli at these heights would explain this additional cold snap in this Tour which turns the grammar of the bike upside down.

“There are three opportunities left (…). We will not let go and we will try every day to move forward and seek stage victory ”, explained David Gaudu at the start of Pas de la Casa. He will finish 9^e of the stage. There are only two more opportunities left, then.

Pogacar almost seems bored

Almost everything is getting amazing on this Tour. Usually the tar melts and sticks to the wheels. In fact, autumn fell suddenly in Ariège three months early. Then a runner reached 78.2 km / h in the wet descent of Pas de la Casa, where a few flakes fell in the night: just at the start, the Dane Kaper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick Step), after having achieved a number high-flying to reach the valley, takes 200 meters. Then 400. And escapes.

The secret of the Deceunik-Quick Step will never be revealed. Did Asgreen simply have time to see the big SUV of his manager Patrick Lefevere, parked on the side of the road, anonymous, among the spectators, in Tarascon-sur-Ariège?

The rolling slopes of the Col de Port allow the peloton to get closer to the fugitive. 1 min 30 s difference. His teammate, sprinter Mark Cavendish is let go. Chris Froome (Israel Start-Up Nation), Simon Clarke (Qhubeka NextHash) and Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R-Citroën) also lose contact.

Colombian Miguel-Angel Lopez (Movistar), in hibernation since the start of the Tour, tries to escape. Pogacar himself comes to bring him to his senses. The Slovenian almost seems bored. Mattia Cattaneo (Deceunnik-Quick Step) passes at the top of the Port au train pass, followed by Asgreen and Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos-Grenadiers). The peloton is then in single file and melts in the descent on the three fugitives. There are less than 20 seconds between the two groups.

At kilometer 92, the peloton, at the foot of the Col de Core, is reconstituted. A group of fourteen takes off, including David Gaudu, Sonny Colbrelli, Michael Matthews (BikeExchange), Franck Bonnamour (B&B p / b KTM), Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R-Citroën) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Cofidis). Austrian Patrick Konrad takes the lead. At the foot of the ascent of the Col de Portet-d’Aspet the group will finally burst.

“The hardest climb in the Pyrenees”

Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), winner of the 2014 edition, no longer appeared in the peloton of the Tour: as he had announced, the Italian left the Grande Boucle on Monday, during the rest day, to focus on the Tokyo Olympics – the road race is scheduled for July 24, just six days after the finish on the Champs-Elysées.

“I ran a different Tour from my past experience, but similar to 2016 before Rio”, argued the one who pointed before his abandonment at 33^e place in the general classification, 1 h 07 min 05 s from the yellow jersey. “It was the perfect way for me to achieve the best form for Tokyo. “

Tomorrow, on the program of the 17^e stage between Muret (Haute-Garonne) and Saint-Lary-Soulan (Haute-Pyrénées) of the flat then of the mountain. The peloton will finish the 178.4 kilometers of the day by the Col du Portet: “The hardest climb in the Pyrenees”, according to the technical director of the race, Thierry Gouvenou. Enough to bring the Tour out of its hibernation. Finally, theoretically.