Arnaud De Lie has suffered another dose of hardship and Grand Tour misery, abandoning the Tour de France towards the end of a day of suffering on a brutal stage 3.
The Belgian, who had to abandon May’s Giro d’Italia after just three stages due to illness, has suffered a very similar fate at this Tour de France. He was forced to miss Thursday’s teams presentation due to a stomach problem, struggled to train ahead of the race and has suffered badly since the race began on Saturday.
After playing no real role in the opening team time trial, De Lie finished dead last on stage 2, but Monday’s stage 3 was when he started to flirt with an exit from the race.
Dropped early amid a furiously-paced start as a breakaway struggled to form, De Lie quickly found himself several minutes behind, and continued to bleed time all along a route headed into the medium mountains under a blazing Pyrenean sun.
As the gap rose above the half-hour mark with 40km to go, the prospect of missing the time cut began to come into focus.
However, despite battling on for most of the day, De Lie never reached the finish. As we waited for news of whether he would cross the line in time, it was reported that he had abandoned, deep into the stage.
It has been a trying season for De Lie, who commented that he’d “soon be a Buddhist monk,” such was the avalanche of misfortune he has had to process. He made that comment at the Tour de Wallonie in early June, and while he did manage to win a stage of that race, in the end, he is back in suffer mode as another Grand Tour has gone off the rails.
The big question now, as he lives to fight another day, is whether he can get it back on track.
More to follow
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