Cobbles cause chaos at the Tour de France but GC battle remains perfectly poised
16 July 2018 05:02
The medical bulletin issued after stage 9 of the Tour de France included a long list of riders who were injured on the cobbles and roads of northern France, but offered little detail of the enormous physical battering the riders endured on the 15 sectors of cobbles that so shaped the stage and brought so much drama. The faces of the riders offered far more detail, revealing the inner pain and suffering sparked by the cobbled farm tracks of northern France. The riders really were the forçats de la route – the convicts of the road – as French journalist Albert Londres once famously described the Tour de France riders, as the Tour put on a sadistic Grand Tour freak show on Sunday, forcing the overall contenders to fight for wheels and try to simply find a safe passage to the finish. The Grand Tour flyweights had to fight with the beefy Classics specialists in what was never going to be a fair fight. Yet, remarkably, despite the crashes in the past nine days, and the team time trial, and the Mûr-de-Bretagne finish, and, ultimately, the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, the overall classification remains perfectly poised, with 23 riders packed into three minutes behind race leader Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing).ADVERTISEMENT Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) remains an example of Grand-Tour-contender resilience. The fragile Frenchman suffered three punctures during the pavé sections, and changed bikes and wheels a total of five times. He was over a minute off the pace at one point, but fought back again and again thanks to some superb work by his team to limit his losses to just seven seconds on his main rivals. He rightly hugged his teammates in gratitude at the finish. Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) crashed hard on Saturday's stage 8, and was worried about racing yet again with back injuries, but he also fought back to finish in the front group. No wonder UAE Team Emirates were happy to show their dirty faces and beaming smiles afterwards via social media. Mikel Landa (Movistar) crashed hard on 'normal', non-cobbled roads as he was reaching for his bidon, but got up, chased with help from loyal teammates, and finished with Bardet. He was just behind teammates Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana, who both performed way above expectations, rubbing shoulders and holding their own against riders some 30kg of muscle heavier. Movistar escaped the toil of the chain-gang and can now really begin their three-prong attack on their rivals. Thomas still leads 'virtual GC'
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