2023 Tour de France: Pau - Laruns

 

The GC battle returned to roads of the Tour de France in full force. Jai Hindley of Bora-Hansgrohe and Jonas Vingegaard were the major contenders who took advantage of the undulating terrain to set themselves up for a solid run at winning the yellow jersey. This mountain stage had plenty of fast paced action and a significant reshuffling of the yellow jersey standings.

Route Description: Today's stage started with a long lead up to the first climb, the col du Soudet. The route led from Pau into the Pyrennes mountains along the lower valleys to the first Hors Categories, beyond categorization otherwise referenced HC, climb of the Tour de France. HC climbs are the toughest, narliest, longest, and steepest climbs in the Tour. After the descent of the Soudet there was 20 miles of valley roads that included a category 4 climb before the Category climb of the Col du Marie Blanc. The Col de Marie Blanc in addition to being the last climb also had bonus seconds available to the first three riders to cross the col. A ten mile speedy descent down to Laruns, the finish town, followed the top of the col du Marie Blanc.

Race Summary and Analysis: The beginning of the stage in the lead up to the climb was completed at a furious pace as multiple groups attempted to form a breakaway. The high pace of peloton at the beginning of the stage led to some of the sprinters who crashed in the previous stage were dropped and at risk of missing the timecut. Eventually a 32 man breakaway would form including 20 of the 22 teams. Most of the riders were far down on the yellow jersey standings,  but Jai Hendley an outside favorite for the yellow jersey had sneaked into the break. UAE and Jumbo-Visma had teammates in the breakaway and didn't have significant motivation to try and reel them back. Wout Van Aert, Victor Campanaerts, Bryan Coquard, and Mads Pedersen dropped the rest of the breakaway as they approached the sprint location and the Col du Soudet. The four would contest the sprint points which Coquard would win ahead of Pedersen. It should be pointed out that Campanaerts and Van Aert were completely disinterested in the sprint. Immediately after the sprint location Coquard dropped back to the main breakaway. Campanaerts and Van Aert continued on started the Soudet climb with over a minute on the breakaway with the peloton was approaching four minutes. As the Soudet climb continued the main breakaway eventually cuaght the Campanaerts-Van Aert group. In the upper section of the Soudet climb Felix Gall of Ag2r-Citroen attacked the breakaway and would solo summit the HC climb. On the descent of the Soudet a reduced breakaway group linked up with Felix Gall. Gall had two teamates and Jai Hendley had one teammate with him. The peloton on the Soudet climb shedded many of the sprinters who would form the groupetto and work to avoid the time cut. The breakaway rode thru the valley with the peloton picking up the pace and cutting into the deficit. At the bottom of the cold du Marie Blanc the peloton still had an over three minute gap to the breakaway. The ascent of the col du Marie Blanc reduced the breakaway one by one as it was led by the Ag2r-Citroen teammates of Felix Gall. As the final kilometers of the climb approached the lead of the race was down to two men Hendley and Gall. Eventually Hendley attacked to gain the bonus seconds at the top and Gall couldn't keep up.  Meanwhile at the same time the peloton was beginning to catch many of the breakaway riders. Early on the climb the peloton was led by UAE working for Pogacar, but eventually Jumbo-Visma took over. As soon as Van Aert was caught he immediately went to the front of the reduced peloton and drove the pace until he was out of gas. Suddenly Jonas Vingegaard decided to attack to see if Tadej Pogacar was able to follow. Pogacar did not respond to Vingegaard's attack and he continued on as Pogacar seemed to be having difficulty maintaining the pace with the other riders. Hendley would cross the climb by himself taking the bonus seconds and begin the descent to Laruns. Felix Gall would be all but caught at the top by Vingegaard who already had stretched his lead to around one minute over Pogacar. During the descent Vingegaard would keep chasing down Hendley in a failed attempt to catch him, but would limit his time loss to about 40 seconds. Vingegaard's attack on the Marie Blanc has significantly distanced all his rivals other than Hendley and particular gaining a valuable minute on Pogacar. The effort he put in was only over the last few kilometers of the climb and the final 4 or 5 km of the descent to Laruns which is essentially flat. The key question is whether the efforts by Vingegaard and Hendley will cost them tomorrow when the Tour has a high mountain climbing stage in the Pyrennes' again ending with an uphill climb. I worry that Hendley being in the break may have expended enough energy that he might be gaped on the final climb of stage 6.