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Did you watch the Tour de France through the eras of Lance Armstrong or Greg LeMond? When you did, then you definitely most likely discovered the Tour akin to a Wagnerian opera—painfully lengthy, with a boring opening half and frenetic, edge-of-your-seat finale.
Within the nineties and early aughts, the race usually opened with a brief particular person time trial, adopted by a strong week of flat phases that catered to the peloton’s sprinters. The favorites to win the yellow jersey, in the meantime, would relaxation their legs for this stretch, saving vitality for weeks two and three. Lastly, after maybe ten days of doldrums, the race would enter the Alps or the Pyrenees, and the struggle for yellow—with these aggressive high-altitude assaults and counterattacks—would jar viewers from their mid-summer slumbers.
The Tour adopted this method for many years. After which, only a few years in the past, race proprietor Amaury Sport Organisation determined that the mannequin had grown stuffy. Beginning in 2017, organizers sprinkled excessive mountains and punishing summit finishes into the Tour’s opening week to spice issues up. The brand new recipe labored so nicely that, for 2023, organizers seem to have dumped all the spice rack into combine. This yr’s race kicked off on Saturday, July 1, in Spain’s steep and hilly Basque nation, which was then adopted by one other laborious stage with loads of uphills. Two flat phases adopted on Monday and Tuesday, which served as a runway to 2 phases of huge, punishing climbs within the Pyrenees.
Bye bye, Wagner. The 2023 Tour route feels extra like Van Halen.
(Spoiler alert!) Wednesday’s fifth stage was proof that the Tour’s opening week is now must-see TV. The mountainous route at the moment fully shook up the struggle for the yellow jersey, and compelled rivals Jonas Vingegaard of Dutch group Jumbo Visma and Tadej Pogačar of UAE Crew Emirates to sq. off, mano a mano, on a steep climb referred to as the Col de Marie Blanque. Biking can typically grow to be a boxing match, with two nice rivals accelerating after which chasing one another down on a steep part of street—the bike racing model of punching somebody within the face. The aim is to attain a knockout punch—an acceleration that’s so quick and livid {that a} rival can not comply with.
That’s simply what Vingegaard did on the climb. The Dane had his teammate, American Sepp Kuss, enhance the tempo to an insufferable pace, which dropped Pogačar’s teammates (together with Adam Yates, who was in yellow). Then, Vingegaard bolted away on the steepest part of the climb, leaving a huffing and puffing Pogačar in his mud.
By the end, Vingegaard—the defending champ—had gained multiple minute on Pogačar, himself a two-time Tour winner. And that wasn’t even the most important storyline of the day! Earlier within the stage, an Australian rider named Jai Hindley had attacked into the day’s breakaway, and the peloton allowed the group to get a four-minute benefit over the climbs. Hindley is not any slouch—he received the Giro d’Italia in 2022, and is among the up-and-coming Grand Tour riders within the bunch. Why the group allowed him to achieve a lot time is anybody’s guess—typically the massive favorites (on this case Pogačar and Vingegaard) are so preoccupied with one another that they permit darkish horse favorites to achieve time on the group.
Jai Hindley takes Stage 5 by storm 🤯
The BORA-hansgrohe rider takes the lead on basic classification after an unimaginable lengthy vary assault on Stage 5 of the Tour de France 💪
__________
🇫🇷 #TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/DBBMZPD5sr— Velon CC (@VelonCC) July 5, 2023
Hindley dropped the breakaway riders on the Col de Marie Blanque and rode in solo for the stage win. He also took over the yellow jersey, and he now leads Vingegaard by 47 seconds.
In Tour parlance, 47 seconds represents a reasonably large hole. Plus, Hindley is an skilled climber, and this yr’s route is teeming with excessive mountains the place he can excel. On paper, the race appears to have grow to be a two-horse race between Hindley and Vingegaard, however let me be the primary to let you know that this race is much from over. Extra mountains, hills, and steep finishes are coming later in week one, and weeks two and three are equally troublesome. The 2023 Tour route has few days off for Hindley, Vingegaard, Pogačar, or any of the opposite riders hoping to win yellow. And meaning it has few days off for viewers such as you and me.
Present Standings
Tour de France, stage 5 (Pau – Laruns, 101 miles)
- Jai Hindley (Australia), Bora-Hansgrohe, 3:57:07
- Giulio Ciccone (Italy), Lidl-Trek, at 0:32
- Felix Gall (Austria), AG2R Citroën, at 0:32
- Emanuel Buchmann (Germany), Bora-Hansgrohe, at 0:32
- Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark), Jumbo-Visma, at 0:34
- Mattias Skjelmose (Denmark), Lidl-Trek, at 1:38
- Daniel Martinez (Colombia), Ineos Grenadiers, at 1:38
- Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia), UAE Crew Emirates, at 1:38
- David Gaudu (France), Groupama FDJ, at 1:38
- Carlos Rodriguez (Spain), Ineos Grenadiers, at 1:38
Common Classification Standings
- Hindley, 22:15:12
- Vingegaard, at 0:47
- Ciccone, at 1:03
- Buchmann, at 1:11
- Adam Yates (Nice Britain), UAE Crew Emirates, at 1:34
- Pogačar, at 1:40
- Simon Yates (Nice Britain), Jayco AlUla, at 1:40
- Skjelmose, at 1:56
- Gaudu, at 1:56
OK, onto the bizarre stuff I noticed on Tour twitter at the moment:
Tour Twitter’s Biggest Hits
Now that’s a devoted #LeTour2023 fan!! 😂👏🚴♂️🚴♂️#LeTour #TourDeFrance2023 #TourdeFrance pic.twitter.com/QUcJ3atKFJ
— Scott (@FrancoScott_) July 4, 2023
So glad that backhoe biking hasn’t taken off.
Basque followers march into City.. Bayonne, Tour de France 2023 pic.twitter.com/H5tjdmduUm
— Garry Beckett (@Rockybucket) July 3, 2023
Basque biking followers—you may actually hear them coming a mile away.
On the eve of his final ever Tour de France, we’re excited to announce new documentary MARK CAVENDISH: NEVER ENOUGH.
The movie charts the rise, fall and resurrection of a real sporting nice as he makes an attempt to show the doubters improper and make biking historical past. Coming 2 August. pic.twitter.com/DmGeqKu3HF
— Netflix UK & Eire (@NetflixUK) June 30, 2023
Seems to be like there’s a brand new Netflix mission about biking.
Scenes from contained in the peloton on stage 4 of the Tour de France.#TDF2023 📺: Peacock pic.twitter.com/0LbSjCh4gK
— NBC Sports activities Biking (@NBCSCycling) July 4, 2023
I can’t get sufficient of those inside-the-peloton video clips.
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