Tour de France 2023: Annemasse - Morzine Les Portes du soleil

 The first showdown in the Alps didn't dissapoint. The steep climbs combined with the time bonus available at the top of the last climb meant that the stage turned into a significant battle for the yellow jersey with no real change to the yellow jersey standings.

Route Description: The thirteenth stage was from AnneMasse to Morzine Les Portes du Soleil over 151.8 km. This stage contained three category 1 climbs, a third category climb, and the final climb was rated Hors Categorie, beyond categorization. The stage started with the category 3 climb followed by two category 1 climbs before the mid-stage sprint location at the Col de Jambaz. After the sprint was the descent into the last category 1 climb. The last climb of the day was the HC rated Col de Joux Plane which included a time bonus at the top. From the top of the Col du Joux Plane there was 12 km of technical descent to the finish line at Morzine.

Race Summary and Analysis: The stage started with 165 riders remaining in the Tour de France. 6.5 km into the stage there was a massive crash that caused the Tour to have to halt. Louis Mentjes (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) and Antonio Pederero (Movistar) would abandon as a result of the crash. The race was restarted approximately half an hour later, but Esteban Chaves (EF Education- EasyPost) would abandon in pain from his crash injuries 15 km into the stage. The first breakaway of the day would form with Lars van den Berg (Groupama-FDJ), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step), and Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech). Dani Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) would join the lead trio later. On the descent of the third category climb James Shaw (EF Education - EasyPost) and Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich) would crash and have to abandon. This is only the second time that Romain Bardet has abandoned the Tour, and as a good descender this is a very unlikely way for him to have to leave the Tour. The attacks and counter attacks occurred between the category 3 and the first category 1 climb. Eventually a 21 rider breakaway would form. The peloton led by Jumbo-Visma kept the break from gaining too much time with a solid pace. The breakaway didn't contain any immediate risks to the yellow jersey placing of either Pogacar or Vingegaard and thus these teams didn't see a need to chase. Jumbo-Visma must have had plans to attack Pogacar in the later parts of the stage since they kept the break from getting a large lead that would be insurmountable even with all the tough climbing on par for the stage. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) would take the maximum king of the mountain points on the first two Category 1 climbs ahead of Polka Dot jersey wearer Neilson Powless (EF Education - EasyPost). On the second Category 1 climb Ciccone got a gap and started the descent solo. He would be caught by a group containing Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Alex Anaburu (Movistar), Wout Poels (Bahrain-Victorious), and Michael Woods (Israel-Premiere Tech). Woods and Ciccone would ride away from their breakaway counterparts at the start of the third Category 1 climb, but would be caught before the top by the yellow jersey group. Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) would be the first rider over the last Category 1 climb. With the breakaway reeled in Jumbo-Visma was in the clear to start their planned moves to drop Pogacar and help Jonas Vingegaard gain time.

With 30 km to go a group of 16 riders formed at the front containing Van Aert, Sepp Kuss, Wilco Kelderman, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Felix Grossschartner, Rafal Majka, Adam Yates, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Simon Yates, Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and Felix Gall (Ag2r-Citröen). Jumbo Visma would lead the group up the hors categorie (HC) climb of the col du Joux Plane. At 5km from the top Jai Hindley would be dropped by the pace set by Sepp Kuss. Pogacar decided to attack at 3.7 km from the top and gained a 4 second lead. Vingegaard would spend the next two kilometers catching back up to Pogacar. Pogacar while a very talented climber has a very strong explosive sprint that he can use uphill and on the flats also. This explosive burst has allowed him to get separation from Vingegaard several times, but his pace slows down after the initial burst. Vingegaard will often follow the immediate attack, but back off rather quickly to not burn out and lose a larger amount of time. Instead he will maintain a very high tempo which is often faster than Pogacar after his explosive attack. Once Vingegaard caught Pogacar they were left to mark each other one on one without any other riders. With approximately 1 km to go to the top Pogacar attacked again, but had to stop due to nearly running into the motorcycles in front of them. This allowed Vingegaard to catch back up. TV commentators were riled by the fact that the motorcycles were so close to the riders at that point, but the crowd on the top of the climb had narrowed the road to barely one riders width. The motorcycles are unable to get more distance without losing the riders to the crowd, and they are going at barely a stable speed due to having to force the fans to move out of the way. It should be pointed out that I did not see a single officer towards the top assigned for crowd control. I do not blame the motorcycles for the predicament they were in, and the riders should be appreciative of the space created by them otherwise they might have crashed from a fans arm, flag, or article of clothing hooking their handlebars. At the top Vingegaard pulled a Pogacar and attacked for the time bonus at the top of the Col de Joux Plane. They would go thru the false plateau that exists after the crest of the climb with Carlos Rodriguez being the third rider over the top. Rodriguez would chase down the lead duo at the top of the technical descent and then pass them. He would make the descent all the way to the finish line solo. Pogacar and Vingegaard would trail him by several seconds chasing the time bonuses at the finish line. With about 2km left in the stage Adam Yates of UAE would catch up with Pogacar and Vingegaard. The next man behind the trio was Sepp Kuss a teammate of Vingegaard, but the stage would finish with no change to the yellow jersey holder, but the time gap would increase by one second.