{"id":247728,"date":"2026-06-11T04:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/the-inner-ring-aura-tour-stage-5-preview\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T04:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:00:51","slug":"the-inner-ring-aura-tour-stage-5-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/the-inner-ring-aura-tour-stage-5-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Ring | Aura Tour Stage 5 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A stage for the sprinters only there are so few in the race it could suit the breakaway too.<\/p>\n

To offset a predictable preview, today\u2019s postcard tells the tale of one of the best jerseys ever.<\/p>\n

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Stage 4 Review<\/strong>: sprint or breakaway, that was the question in the morning. It went to the breakaway on a blisteringly fast stage, 47km\/h on a hilly day. No early move went clear, too many efforts cancelling each other out. It was only mid-stage that Quinn Simmons went solo and then a counter-group got across. Helped by a \u201cNoah\u2019s ark\u201d tactic with three teams each sending two riders in the move, they only got a slim lead.<\/p>\n

Cofidis led the chase to keep the gap at 90 seconds, then Visma-LAB joined. The gap fell but the breakaway was unified as if repeating the previous day\u2019s team time trial. It left a tense final half hour where it was touch and go if the break would make it or the bunch would get them, and suspense both ways as who could win from the break and which sprinters were left?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to engineer but a sprint stage that has hills in the early and mid-section can make for a lively stage as it sets up the breakaway and the chase. Like the Giro, the Dauphin\u00e9<\/del> Aura Tour has plenty of terrain on hand for this.<\/p>\n

Simmons won the sprint ahead of Finn Fisher-Black and Matteo Vercher, a birthday present for Lidl-Trek team manager Andy Schleck. Three road stages, three breakaway wins.<\/p>\n

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The Route<\/strong>: 198km and some climbing out of the Gier valley to start with. There\u2019s the unmarked climb out of the Val d\u2019Oingt around the 100km mark amid the Beaujolais vineyards and then its onto flatter terrain where the local is Paul Seixas. Precise knowledge won\u2019t help as the roads are largely flat.<\/p>\n

The Finish<\/strong>: the Dombes is a large wetland area full of lakes and ponds and very flat. The finish is the same as the 2015 Dauphin\u00e9 and 2016 Tour de France finish, flat and the last corner is with 3km to go.<\/p>\n

The Contenders<\/strong>: a sprint stage in a race with few sprinters. Wout van Aert<\/strong> (Visma-LAB) won the bunch sprint yesterday ahead of Bryan Coquard<\/strong> (Cofidis) and Phil Bauhaus<\/strong> (Bahrain) and that\u2019s an easy scenario to see again today as Van Aert tends to win while the other two don\u2019t. This trio does seem ahead of other picks, Dorion Godon<\/strong> (Ineos) would like an uphill run to the line, Michael Matthews<\/strong> (Jayco), well he\u2019s 35 and Matteo Trentin<\/strong> (Tudor) is 36.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy ambush territory for a Segaert-style move and some of the most likely riders to try this like Edoardo Affini, Benjamin Thomas or Matej Mohori\u010d have sprinters to work for; maybe Josh Tarling has a go but it\u2019ll be hard just to surprise the bunch and get a gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nVan Aert<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nBauhaus, Coquard<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nRomeo, Godon, Hofstetter, Kockelmann<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Weather<\/strong>: 20\u00b0C and a light NW wind of 15km\/h.<\/p>\n

TV<\/strong>: KM0 is at 12.45pm and the finish is forecast for 5.00pm.<\/p>\n

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Postcard from Saint-Chamond<\/strong>
Today\u2019s start is in the Gier valley between Saint-Etienne and Lyon, an industrial area with steel mills and textile factories only most closed down years ago.<\/p>\n

It was in Saint-Chamond that Roger Zannier, the son of an Italian builder, bought two sewing machines in 1962: one for him and one for his sister Josette. He began his own textile business. It flourished and by 1982 Zannier\u2019s company stopped manufacturing clothes and instead was designing and selling them, and able to hire others to manufacture them.<\/p>\n

During the 1986 Tour de France the Peugeot team got news from its sponsor that the funding would stop at the end of the year, the end of a sponsorship that began in 1901. This stunned team manager Roger Legeay who convinced TV channel TF1 to do a news feature on the team\u2019s history and its search for a new sponsor. One person watching this was Zannier, now running a successful clothing empire. He and his marketing director went for it and would use their children\u2019s clothing brand \u201cZ\u201d as the new sponsor for 1987. This story is told in full with a lot more detail in the July-essential P\u00e9dale mag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Z started with a bang, their kit featured a bold graphic design because of the new technique of sublimation. As lively as the kit was, the 1987 Tour was a flop for Z. Upcoming hope Ronan Pensec had finished third in the Dauphin\u00e9 and then decided to do a pre-Tour clean of the gutters on his house and fell, breaking several bones. Zannier had gone all in, pulling all TV and billboard ads for Z to spend the money on a cycling team instead but had little to show.<\/p>\n

The next year Zannier knew the results might not be better but wanted the team to be more visible. He bought a TV for his office so he could tune in when coverage started then told Legeay (translated from P\u00e9dale):<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be realistic, we won\u2019t win the Tour, but I want a Z every day in the breakaway at 3.00pm. D<\/em>o as you like, I don\u2019t care, even if the guy dies at the finish, but I want to see the guys at the front.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It worked, the team was visible and being up front gave them options on the win and J\u00e9r\u00f4me Simon took a stage with Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle second on another day.<\/p>\n

Zannier was exploring manufacturing in China and found factory owners who had demanded letters of credit now recognised him and Z because they\u2019d seen the glimpses of the Tour de France, knew he was something big and were ready to work for him. Zannier invested more in the team, hiring Robert Millar for 1989 and then for 1990 recruiting Greg LeMond who\u2019d just won the 1989 Tour de France and Worlds. LeMond would win the Tour with Z in 1990 and they took the team prize, it\u2019s the last time a French team won the Tour.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

Zannier pulled the cycling sponsorship but Z kept on retailing for years but the franchises gradually closed in the 2010s, then Zannier had sold out and seemingly left the new buyers with a turkey. The company was liquidated in 2020, it\u2019s HQ in Saint-Chamond closed for good.<\/p>\n

Zannier owned other brands like Catimini clothes and Kickers shoes and made a fortune from it all with which he and his family then pivoted towards luxuries, buying a Michelin-starred restaurant and a fancy wine ch\u00e2teau which he operates today along with his son. A long way from a sewing machine for him and his sister.<\/p>\n

Z lives on as an iconic design, the cycling jersey arguably more famous than the chain of children\u2019s clothing stores it represented. It\u2019s also digital indoor cycling platform Zwift lets riders unlock the vintage jersey.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stage for the sprinters only there are so few in the race it could suit the breakaway too. To offset a predictable preview, today\u2019s postcard tells the tale of one of the best jerseys ever. Stage 4 Review: sprint or breakaway, that was the question in the morning. It went to the breakaway on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}