> Chris Froome backs Tadej Pogačar to wrap up Tour de France: 'He's got it in the bag' That effort did cause a split at the front of the yellow jersey group, as Jumbo-Visma continued to press on down the descent towards the line. Meanwhile back in the GC group, the pace did ramp up on the final climb as Cofidis set a strong pace before Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) launched an unexplained sprint to the summit, leading the group over before the pace fell away again. Konrad continued to extend his advantage, reaching the line on his own, 42 seconds ahead of the chasers, taking the biggest win of his career, with his two national titles the only other races on his palmarès.Īs the chasers followed Konrad home, Colbrelli put in a huge sprint to take second on the stage, once again showing his strength in this Tour, followed by Matthews in third. Onto the Col de Porte-d’Aspet and Konrad once again decided to up the pace, dropping his breakaway companions one-by-one and reaching the summit alone with 32km still to ride.īehind, David Gaudu and Colbrelli launched a two-rider attack and worked well together to try and close down Konrad on the Portet-d’Aspet, but they weren’t able to dent the morale of the lone leader, eventually being caught by the rest of the chasing group. It was on that climb that Konrad opted to attack and drop his companions, bridging across to the leading trio with 70km to race. Meanwhile the peloton began to slip to more than seven minutes behind the first group on the road, as no teams were willing to take up the chase.
Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) was nowhere to be seen but comfortably kept his green jersey at the end of the stage.Īfter the sprint, Konrad, Colbrelli and Matthews formed part of a 10-rider chasing group trying to close down the advantage to the leading trio on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Core. That group crossed the intermediate sprint together, sweeping up most of the green jersey points on offer, as another breakaway group began to form behind under the impetus from Michael Matthews (BikeExchange) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious), who wanted the remaining points on offer, with Matthews taking fourth in the sprint and Colbrelli fifth. It was an unusual start to the stage, with Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) the only rider willing to attack on the early descent, with other teams reluctant to send anyone in pursuit.Īsgreen was eventually caught before three new riders were able to get a gap and began to establish a breakaway, with Christopher Juul-Jensen (Team BikeExchange), Fabien Doubey (TotalEnergies) and Jan Bakelants (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) going clear around 100km from the finish. It was then a short uphill dash to the line to decide the winner.ĭue to the cold and rainy conditions at the start in Andorra, the neutralised start was extended with riders stopping at kilometre zero to remove their rain jackets before racing.
After the descent from that climb, riders had to take on the famous Col de Portet-d’Aspet (5.4km at 6.7km) inside the final 40km, and then finally the short and punchy Côte d’Aspret-Sarrat, which is just under a kilometre long and came in the final 10km of the stage.
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