Jonathan Milan’s already got one stage and is in the yellow jersey but has a challenge to repeat today.
Milan does the business : a scare for Milan on the penultimate climb but he got back with help from his team. On the last climb Romain Bardet had a go, a show for his supporters who were waiting on the same slopes. Lidl-Trek left it late for the lead-out but that’s often a successful move as long as they’re not stuck in traffic because of the course.
Once again Milan in full flight is a terrifying sight, as if any second a crank could snap or his bars disintegrate and he’d slam into the tarmac. It’s all force and movement too. But it works so well and he looked irresistible in the finish.
The Route: 202km and 3,100m of vertical gain. It’s uphill from the start and then across the Forez, the mountainous forests of the Massif Central.
The Château Jaune climb featured in Paris-Nice on the “wall stage” won by Lenny Martinez. This climb was the first and helped dynamite the peloton into bits but in part because the bunch knew more was to come, this time the finish is only 20km beyond. It has a gentle start and a “nothing to write home about” feel to start then it starts to bite and soon it’s on a 16% ramp with more to come. But it’s short.
The Finish: country roads into the small town of Charantonnay and then it’s slightly uphill to the line inside the final kilometre.
The Contenders: Lild-Trek should chase today, Jonathan Milan is in the yellow jersey and a pick for the stage but he’ll struggle on the final climb. But we’ll see who goes up the road, today is open to more riders when later days are not.
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Van der Poel, Milan |
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Latour, Velasco, Laurance, Penhoët |
Weather: sunshine and 26°C.
TV: KM0 is at midday and the finish is due for 17.15 CEST. The last 90 minutes are on TV and the Château Jaune climb is around 16.45.
Postcard from Brioude
A tale of two retiring riders. Romain Bardet grew up in Brioude, today’s start town and he’s still a member of the local club, Vélo Sport Brivadois. He took some local kids out for a training ride last week. He’s had an exemplary career, not only making the most of his abilities but compelling Ag2r La Mondiale to try and match his ambitions, prompting the team to up its game and even nicknamed toujours plus, “always more” by management because he was demanding.
At a time when the sport was cleaning up its act he took inspiration from Dan Martin‘s wins, like in Liège, as signs if he could do it then so could Bardet. A lot of Bardet’s career has been about trying to find order among chaos; right down to picking his retirement date, to leave at the end of this race that even has a stage in tribute, much better than finish on a melancholic autumn day.
The other is Pierre Latour, long a team mate of Bardet. Today’s stage crosses the Rhone to ride into the Isère department on some of his training roads. He’s arguably brought chaos to the sport, often in a fun way. He burst onto the scene in 2015 when he was duking it out for a stage win in the Route du Sud against Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador, even if he’d gone up the road to build up a cushion but it was still impressive.
His Vuelta stage win in 2016 and the duel with Darwin Atapuma was gripping, but his only World Tour win. This led to plenty of pressure but he wasn’t formatted for it, he might have a Vo2 Max in the 90s but he wanted to have fun along the way.
Lately enjoyment has been hard because of a recurrent descending phobia, he’s tried everything from descending lessons to riding motorbike on a circuit and several mental coaching. It can go away but one scare and it returns, limiting for a rider whose talent is best deployed on hilly days. This means he’s set to retire at the end of the year, at the age of 31 and if he can’t pick his moment or have a stage as a tribute this week, look out for a final flourish along the way.