Overall race leader Primoz Roglic and his Jumbo-Visma team remained vigilant but also contented themselves with letting the stage be decided by opportunistic forwards, as the serial breakaways were tried until the final final group of five begins the grueling and hilly final. Hirschi’s power got him clearly up the steeper slopes and, with Alaphilippe among those chasing him, he made sure to stay clear this time around to win.
Friday’s stage takes the peloton to a summit finish at Pas de Peyrol in Cantal. The last two kilometers include sections of 15% elevation, which is sure to provide a springboard for attacks on Roglic’s lead among the favorites in the overall standings.
The Tour convoy may not be well received in Lyon when it arrives on Saturday.
“The Tour de France continues to convey a macho image of sport”, declared the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, interviewed in Le Progrès. “There should have been a women’s Tour de France long ago. This is the last major event not to have taken the plunge, ”he declared, before qualifying the Tour as“ non-eco-responsible ”and“ polluting ”.
Doucet, elected on a green platform, also attacked the “goodies” offered to fans by the advertising caravan and the presence of sponsors such as Total and Ineos.
The threat of ejection from the Tour that hangs over four teams after the results of the first batch of Covid-19 tests last Monday has eased after the race organization declared that the “two strikes” protocol for them positive tests would be reset before Sunday’s test batch. and Monday.
Following the comments of the deputy director of the Tour, François Lemarchand, we thought that if one of the Ineos Grenadiers, AG2R-La Mondiale, Mitchelton-Scott or Cofidis had recorded another positive among his staff or his riders, he would be sent home.
Lemarchand, acting as race director in the absence of quarantined Christian Prudhomme, who was among those who tested positive earlier this week, had said that “teams that tested positive would be excluded from doing so.” there was another one from the next round of tests. “.
ASO, in consultation with the French government, has now relaxed that decision and has confirmed that the positive points tally will be reset from September 13-14, the Tour’s next rest day.
“We are resetting the counters for the next round of testing. However, if before these tests any of the four teams has another positive, then they will be excluded, ”ASO told Reuters.
