The platoon is a maquis and Landa leads the battle

Down below, seen from the 1390s from the Glières plateau, Annecy is a minimal and placid little lake, and on a sailboat that rocks moored, songs without words by Fanny Mendelssohn, to whom her father told 200 years ago that although for her brother Felix music would be the great pillar of her life, for her, a woman, it would be nothing but entertainment, but it was her life, and at the same time, sweaty cyclists swallow dust and disgust on Glières, a road of dry dirt and white gravel where they pedal not for entertainment, which they would enjoy, but because that is their life, pedaling in impossible territories, all marked by history, wherever they go on the Tour, and they know that those almost two kilometers in which Porte it clicks and almost falls off the hook, because this is how the maquis are reminded that so many small battles, surprise attacks, disruptive and nose-touching and risky actions, always in small groups, always helping each other as good comrades, fought in Haute-Savoie

against the Nazi invaders, as they wage it and celebrate it, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, Carapaz and Kwiatkowski.

Camino del Plateu, in Saisies, in Aravis, in the ports where the Ecuadorian conquered the mountain spots, which are the same ones in which Pantani tried a last walk of honor in the Tour 2000, when he felt despised by Armstrong or where Landis, drunk on bourbon and testosterone, was sweating and sweeping in 2006, not only they, the two fellow Ineos orphans of leader and free, feel maquis, also half a platoon, like Landa, who with his already prepared Bahrain papayas, Pello and Caruso on the run, ahead, waiting for him, throws a grenade at the beginning of the final climb and several small wars break out that, not as indifferent as he wants to make it seem, he closely controls, the strap always very short, the mechanical banana of the leader Roglic, who takes the opportunity to say to his little calf Pogacar, do you enjoy gravel, Tadej? and then accelerates to fill the eyes and ears of the second child so young that before he also wanted to touch his nose, and there are fireworks

ales.

For Nico 🖤 @INEOSGrenadiers #GreaterTogethet https://t.co/yBUEmNFUMw

- Michał Kwiatkowski (@kwiato) September 17, 2020

Landa has accelerated not because he thinks he can win the Tour but to, out of pride and cycling sense, be the one who causes the small failures of some rivals that allow him to win places, and remain fourth, for example, as he was during the kilometers that Porte was slow to re-enlist after the puncture carried on the winged train by Dumoulin and Van Aert, who want to get to their Roglic so that Pogacar does not win the bonus in the sprint, or fifth, as the day ended, two places up, for having looked for him , and not for having persevered in waiting.

And if now Adam Yates and Rigo Urán, two of those who most clung to all the wheels, are behind, it is because of their effort, that of Landa, not because of others.

The stage, which was in danger of becoming a

in the light of the autumn sun that is fast approaching, and the heat is in July, makes sense and struggles, alliances are created and undone at the stroke of a pinganillo, Enric Mas , for the first time in the entire Tour in the shade he wears his putative white jersey and bright yellow helmet in front and attacks after Landa, he wants to join and advance together, seventh and eighth overall, which will finish on the fifth and sixth day, and Each position that is won, meter by meter, as in a trench warfare, is a triumph and your search is the engine of your life as competitors.

But he has grown up and feels like a boss, and he mocks Superman for not collaborating in the task of sending Australian Porte away, and Superman, safe on his podium, tells him that this war is not going with him ... And Valverde endures like he can beat Rigo, Adam and Guillaume, and loses just enough to stay tenth overall by 19s over Sicilian Damiano Caruso, Landa's comrade who never lifts his foot, a long-suffering and classy runner.

And Valverde can review the encyclopedias of the Tour and verify that in recent history at least, only one, Raymond Poulidor in 1976, finished in the top 10 with 40 years already completed, and was third, too much for Valverde who will settle for being the second in his forties in the top ten, and with not doing an Agostinho, the stainless Portuguese who was killed by a dog that crossed him at a goal and who was 11th in 1983, three months after turning 40.

They all talk and pedal, it is their entertainment and it is their life, but none does it better than Richard Carapaz, who knows the value of camaraderie and sincere humility.

The Ecuadorian was second on Tuesday and crossed the finish line dejected;

he was hunted at La Loze on Wednesday, and he arrived cheered because he had seen his friend Superman fly past him.

He came second this Thursday and crossed the finish line applauding and hugging the first, his partner Kwiatkowski, the great Pole, world champion, San Remo, San Sebastián, Amstel, La Strade, who had accompanied and helped him in the press (they arrive alone because the third of the breakout, the tremendous Hirschi, loved by all, fell), and 500 meters before the finish, Carapaz, a Giro debutant winner in the Tour, had approached him and told him , I'm not going to dispute the victory, I want you to win.

This is how Kwiatkowski told it, moved by his comrade;

Carapaz, who does not want to wear hero medals, did not say so and said that simply "the two had agreed."

"Kwiato has sacrificed a lot for the team and he deserved the victory," he added.

200 years later, Fanny's life and music, her entertainment, thrill, and she is remembered for her, Carapaz will be remembered perhaps more for her generosity as a true person than for her non-victory.

And Roglic, he says, wants to be remembered for "being a good person and a good cyclist" and for winning a Tour, of course, which only has the time trial on Saturday left.

Not all are Roglic, Pogacar, Landa, Carapaz, Bennett or Valverde.

Not everyone comes to the Tour with mythical goals or dreaming of colored or polka dot jerseys.

The great concerns of the Tour stewards pic.twitter.com/GXbCBBW65U

- Carlos Arribas (@carlosarribas) September 17, 2020

Those of some others are pulling crawlers still disguised as the common good of the struggle for sustainable development, ecology and good education, such as those of the career commissioners, who from one day to the next decided to increase from 200 to 500 Swiss francs (465 euros) fines for those cyclists who threw the wrappers of the bars or the empty containers of gels and other restorative outside the areas set up for them.

"Indiscipline is indecent", thundered the commissioners in a statement, and daily they put an average of three fines that impoverish the already poor cyclists and the collective earnings of the teams for the Tour, and add to the daily ones for urinating in public throughout the stage, when many times the cyclist approaches the ditch and relieves himself by thinking that there will be no one there, and a spectator appears.

At his side, within what could be considered a more strictly sporting discipline, only the fines for the famous sticky drum remain buoyant, which sticks to the director's hand when he passes it to his runner from the car, and although it he tries not to let go and accelerates and brings the runner closer to the group.

Despite the fact that the commissioners qualified the packaging, and only apply the maximum fine of 465 euros to cyclists who throw the papers on the ground even with the director's car at hand, the common box to distribute at the end among all of some teams like the Arkea, the Ineos or the Movistar, which, after two thirds of the race, was a total of 5,000, 9,000 and 10,000 euros, respectively, can end in negative numbers.

And a cyclist who accelerates to finish 12th in a stage to win the 470 euros of prize, would be left to zero if it had occurred to him to throw a paper.

General classification of the Tour.