6th November 2023
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Every year, sometime in July, nearly two hundred men get on their bikes and race around France. It sounds simple in principle, but it rarely ever is. Not all of these riders will make it to the finish, and those that do will have been through one of sport’s greatest challenges. The Tour de France is no joke, and this year’s edition is set to be one of the most fiercely fought in recent memory.
So, how are things shaping up so far?
Stage 1 offered the sprinters a chance to claim the coveted yellow jersey, if only for a day. Such an opportunity was not to be passed up on, with teams like Alpecin – Deceuninck, Soudal Quick-Step and Lidl – Trek hoping to guide their sprinters to an early victory. A first French ‘Grand Depart’ since 2021 saw anything but an easy day; overall contender hopefuls Team Visma | Lease a Bike blew the race apart in the crosswinds, leading a 38-strong group to the race finish. Jasper Philipsen stormed to the win in the heavily reduced group, a near guarantee as his sprint rivals were all left empty handed.
Sprints followed on stages 3, 8 and 9, where battle commenced yet again. The aforementioned Philipsen was unfortunately forced to leave the race following a particularly nasty crash on stage 3, leaving one less sprint favourite to contest. Crashes in abundance were the headline that day, where a resurgent Tim Merlier avoided trouble and managed to fend off Jonathan Milan in a photo-finish.
We had to wait a while to get another sprint, but the next didn’t disappoint. With the scarcity of pure sprints in the race, the bunch aren’t taking any chances as a breakaway wasn’t allowed any leash on stage 8. On the uphill drag to Laval, Milan’s relentless power earned him the day’s spoils. Even his cartoonish head-bobbing couldn’t detract from the win, with Wout van Aert earning a solid second place.
Stage 9 saw the previous day turned on its head. What started as a joke before turning all too serious was the breakaway of Mathieu van der Poel and teammate Jonas Rickaert. The pair were given minutes before the sprinters’ teams realised their mistakes, only catching van der Poel in the final hundreds of metres. The master of messy sprints that is Merlier never looked fazed, snatching the win and making it look comfortable in the end. With precious few chances from here on out, the sprinters may have seen the best of things in this Tour de France.
The opening week of this Tour has spanned the north of France. While mountains here are few and far between, the GC hopefuls found their chances lie in Normandy and Bretagne’s short and sharp hills. Stage 2 saw the first fireworks from the main contenders, with Tadej Pogacar finding himself surprised at the attack of Jonas Vingegaard just 5 kilometres from the finish. The group reeled back the slender Dane and a reduced sprint proved inevitable, with the similarly inevitable van der Poel driving the pedals at a pace nobody could match.
Stage 4 was a different affair, with attacks galore marking the final. Vingegaard and Pogacar were neck and neck by the time the final hill arrived, with no one else in sight. A small group driven by Remco Evenepoel, last year’s 3rd place, caught the pair at the death before Pogacar produced a trademark sprint and took the stage win, his 100th career victory.
GC gaps were small up until now between the main contenders, before Stage 5’s decisive time trial around Caen. Evenepoel was the outright favourite and thus delivered, securing the stage. However, the drama came when Vingegaard shed over a minute to Pogacar on a day where the two would’ve equally hoped to be inseparable. Whether this is a sign of things to come, or simply a blip in the plan for the Visma team, only time will tell.
Bastille Day. Stage 10. The final day before the rest yet no ease awaited the peloton. No less than eight categorised climbs on the day in the Massif Central region with hardly an inch of flat road. Team Visma | Lease a Bike set the final climbs alight from the peloton with a flurry of attacks from Matteo Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss. Yet, the expected dig from Vingegaard never came. Giro winner Simon Yates took the day’s win and Irishman Ben Healy the yellow jersey, while no momentous gaps formed back in the bunch.
All eyes are on the weekend. Thursday begins a triple-header into the Pyrenees with a trip to Hautacam. Friday then sees a mountain time trial to the Altiport of Peyragudes, a day near guaranteed to bring significant time gaps. Saturday then kicks again, with a mountain festival summiting at Superbagneres. Such terrain aims to inspire monumental time gaps in the GC, yet with how the two favourites look, it’s anyone’s guess. Pogacar will go into the weekend as the heavy favourite, having dominated in the mountains last year and already holding over a minute thirty gap to the Dane. Yet, he hasn’t managed to drop Vingegaard in the Tour, whose shape regarding the mountains is relatively unknown.
Vingegaard will be hoping to reignite past success on Hautacam, where he previously dropped the Slovenian and took a minute on the road. Pogacar will have his eyes on ending the Tour early in the second week on terrain that suits him. Surely we’ll see these two titans hitting out, while the chance of a dark horse like Evenepoel slipping under the radar remains not entirely inconceivable.
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Header image belongs to Árni Svanur Daníelsson on Unsplash
