It’s only Wednesday and there are only eight riders within a minute of the yellow jersey. Today’s time trial will shake things up further. Remco Evenepoel wants the stage win and as much time as he can get.
Amiens – San Rouen: a series of climbs before a final ascent, the descent into town and a sprint? It’s not March but the finale had the electric feel of la Primavera.
Visma-LAB and UAE traded blows in the hills around Rouen with the Dutch team surging over the penultimate climb with Victor Campenaerts doing a lead-out downhill and into the final climb. UAE came past and Almeida led Pogačar looked ready to launch. He did and only Vingegaard could follow.
Vingegaard struggled, he looked back had to sit down and compose himself but the sight of Pogačar having to sit too seemed prompt him to rise up again and close the gap. It was a micro moment from which narratives of a close contest could be extrapolated but we’ll see what today delivers first.
The pair were caught thanks to chasing by Remco Evenepoel and Van der Poel got back on terms. On the descent Romain Grégoire got across, distancing Mattias Skjelmose and Kévin Vauquelin who chased too. Matteo Jorgenson made a couple of moves in the breathless moments.
Pogačar won the stage, easing off at the final corner to better come by Van der Poel. Vingegaard was not far off overhauling the yellow jersey too, it rare to see Van der Poel empty. For Pogačar’s 100th win it makes for a special picture… and one he’d like to recreate in Sanremo.
The Route: 33km from Caen to the countryside and back. This isn’t a technical course, it’s largely flat with few points to reward bike handling but the course is exposed in places. Today is all about who can fit the biggest chainring and get on top of it.
The race goes back via the Chemin Vert quartier, a part of Caen sometimes described with the euphemism sensible (sensitive or delicate) before a finish by monuments and next to La Prairie, the open air horse racing track, all very much in an insensitive part of the city.
The Contenders: Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) has not had a sparkling start to the Tour, missing a split here, getting caught in a crash there, he’s already 58 seconds down and it’s only Wednesday. But now he’s got terrain to suit and he’s the best time trial rider in the peloton, especially as Filippo Ganna left the race already. He put over a second a kilometre into everyone in the Dauphiné time trial.
Otherwise look for the race within the race and especially what Tadej Pogačar (UAE) does. Adrift in the Dauphiné, this almost looked careless from afar as he sat up to drink and coasted downhill when others kept the chain tight. He should be close and is an outsider for the win.
Dropped yesterday, Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) gets another fitness test to see if his Dauphiné form is waning while we’ll see if Primož Roglič is really here for GC.
Edoardo Affini (Visma-LAB) is a time trial specialist but a win would be an upset and the team knows this and may ask him to save himself, colleague Wout van Aert has been dropped in crunch moments so not looking likely to win as he has done before. Matteo Jorgenson should do well. But all eyes instead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) and whether he can beat Pogačar again in a time trial.
Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B) is the local and he missed out on the French TT title to Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-Ag2r) because he crashed on a corner, he’s on home roads. Luke Plapp (Jayco) sat up yesterday, presumably to save energy for today.
Weather: sunny, 20°C and a 10km/h N wind meaning a slight headwind for the roads out of Caen and a tailwind on the way back. This should be stable for all, there won’t be much difference for the first or last rider.
TV: lanterne rouge Yevgeny Fedorov is off at 1.05pm and maillot jaune Van der Poel is due in around 5.40pm CEST.
Postcard from Caen
Caen? Today’s town is pronounced like quand, French for “when” or “what time” and a so good place to hold a time trial?
Time trials are a shrinking affair in the Tour de France. 1934 saw the format introduced for the first time when riders took part individually in a 90km timed contest. By 1939 there were five stages totalling 282km, the high point. Since then the average is 96km per tour, this figure held from the 1950 to the 1970s; it was higher in the 1980s with 124km per Tour, 110km in the 1990s.
These days the total has shrunk considerably. The chart above shows the Christian Prudhomme era. He took over as race director in 2007 but arguably 2009 onwards shows his imprint. Note the range, from 95km to 14km in three years. The average is 47km per Tour, a big reduction on past eras.
Why so? A motif of Prudhomme tours is the wish for things to go down to the wire, to be undecided as late as possible. Shorter time trials mean smaller time gaps. But there’s nuance here too as there’s been a change in the “exchange rate” of time gains in time trials and summit finishes. The mountains may often only separate the top contenders by seconds; a time trial by minutes. On the whole time trials still account for a greater percentage of the yellow jersey’s winning margin in Paris than the mountains.
Another factor is TV ratings. It’s hard to prove conclusively but it’s said time trials don’t bring in a big audience. The scenery is the same all day, riders are inscrutable behind visors and it’s harder to convey suspense in what is a remote battle.
If time trials have shrunk prologues and team time trials have become rarer. There was a good chance of a team time trial with “Paris-Nice rules” at Mûr-de-Bretagne this year. Instead we’ll see this format in the Tour for the first time at the Barcelona start next year.
A Tour without time trials seems unthinkable for now. The trend is going one way… but only because stages like today, even over 33km, count for so much.