The transition from Spain to France happened on a flatter stage than what has been seen thus far in this Tour de France. The stage may have started with more rolling terrain, but the flat second half of the stage resulted in a sprint finish in Bayonne.
Route Description: Today's stage went from the Spanish Basque country to the French Basque country via San Sebastian. The stage was flat with only three third category climbs and a fourth category climb. The route ran through the Basque countryside and along the Atlantic coast. The first half of the stage included all the climbs and the location of the mid-stage sprint location. Once the race crested the final category 3 climb the descent led to a passage thru the center of San Sebastian. From San Sebastian the route continued north to the border with France. The finishing kilometers were flat with a relatively straight forward run in to Bayonne.
Route Summary and Analysis: As is typical the beginning of the stage was marred with attacks and counter-attacks to try and form a breakaway in the early kilometers of the stage. Eventually Neilson Powless, in the red polka dot jersey, launched an attack. He would be followed by Laurent Pichon of Arkea Samsic. They would be allowed to gain time and form the breakaway of the day. Pichon and Powless would be allowed to stay out over all the categorized climbs and the sprint points. Powless took the maximum points on the climbs enabling him to maintain the jersey for at least the next two stages. Pichon was able to take the green jersey points at the mid-stage sprint. As the breakaway duo rode thru the packed raucous cheering crowd in San Sebastian Powless let up the pace to return to the peloton. The peloton would roll thru San Sebastian a little over two minutes later, and several riders would suffer flat tires from nails that were put in the road. It should be mentioned the same happened the previous day on the Jazkibel. Powless having been in the breakaway on Sunday was intentionally managing his efforts to get more king of the mountain points. Pichon would continue on in a solo futile effort to win the stage. He would be caught after the race had crossed into France. The run in to Bayonne was uneventful with Mathieu Van der Poel towing Jasper Philipsen to the line for a win over all the other great sprinters in the Tour peleton. For the general classification riders today was a day to avoid losing time in a split, which none occurred, or crashing out of the tour in one of the many wrecks that can happen on flat stages. The GC teams were focused on getting the riders who will compete for the yellow jersey to three kilometer to go banner. Once inside three kilometers to the line, if there is an accident that holds up riders they will get the same time as the peloton they were with. In this stage the final kilometers include two sharp bends that were scary considering the peloton was charging towards the line at over 35 miles an hour. In the final straight Jasper Philipsen moved slightly to the right and seemed to cut off Wout Van Aert who abandoned his sprint to avoid crashing into the barriers. The judges most likely reviewed the sprint and decided it was not worthy of disqualifying Philipsen.
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