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A real bromance - who would have expected that from Ineos?
Photo: STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS
Pure satisfaction:
The Ineos team, which is normally spoiled by success, has been severely beaten in the past two and a half weeks of the tour.
The boss David Brailsford chose the wrong tactics, took the wrong people with him, and then defending champion Egan Bernal had to give up in a weary manner.
How much all this gnawed on the team was visible to everyone this Thursday when Ineos drivers Richard Carapaz and Michal Kwiatkowski, beaming with joy, crossed the finish line as stage winners like the best buddies when they come out of the pub.
It wasn't a rock that fell from Ineos' heart, it was a whole fracking mine.
The result of the stage:
Kwiatkowski had reached the finish line a tire width before Carapaz after 175 kilometers from Meribel to La Roche-sur-Foron.
Primoz Roglic and his pursuers Tadej Pogacar and Miguel Angel Lopez crossed the finish line two minutes later as a group.
Everything remains unchanged at the top of the overall ranking after the last Alpine day.
(You can follow the stage via the detailed live ticker, the race report can be found here.)
Country and people:
From the ski resort of Meribel, which is best left quickly in summer, we went through the high mountains again, the French television camera reveled in the images of the Montblanc massif.
It is the area where St. Francis de Sales comes from.
This is the patron saint of journalists and the deaf, and others may make connections.
The noble helpers:
Only the top teams with a lot of money can afford to have a veritable Giro d'Italia winner as a helper.
During these weeks, Roglic from Jumbo-Visma had the Dutchman Tom Dumoulin at his side, who did the management work for him in the mountains.
This is how Ineos had imagined it with Captain Bernal and Richard Carapaz.
But Bernal was weak, and so the Ecuadorian's hour didn’t strike until Bernal got out.
Since then, he has been driving freely, beyond all tactical constraints.
He left the stage win to Kwiatkowski because he had previously performed the helper services for him, for which Carapaz had actually been planned at Bernal.
Carapaz wore the dotted mountain jersey, which he took over from Pogacar.
The last big mountain:
Once again we went over a mountain of the highest category: the Plateau des Glières.
The plateau has its reputation throughout France because a group of the Resistance fought here in 1944 with the soldiers of the Vichy regime and the Germans.
A huge monument reminds of it today.
Schotter:
Pro cyclists hate nothing anymore.
At most rain.
Behind the pass of the Plateau des Glières it overtook them - 1,800 meters of gravel road, and the Australian Richie Porte in particular will have cursed the pebbles.
A tire defect threw him back, although he fought his way back to the best, but then he no longer had the strength to attack.
You drive thousands of kilometers to get onto the podium, and then little stones ensure that it doesn't work out.
The old man can no longer:
André Greipel had previously announced that it would be his last tour, on Thursday it was also his last stage.
After 40 kilometers, the 38-year-old sprint specialist got off his bike, exhausted from an infection.
"Everyone with a sane mind goes to bed," he said before the start of the stage.
After 40 kilometers, then apparently common sense reported.
A great German tour career with eleven stage wins comes to an end in the sick bed.
Strict aroma:
Anyone who drives through France on TV with ARD live commentator Florian Naß will find out everything about the landscapes, but above all about wines and cheese.
On Thursday he raved about the Savoyard Reblochon, but also Saint-Nectaire, Salers, Cantal and Abondance are now playing on the lips as ARD viewers.
If the first is clever, it will soon bring books on the culinary market to the market: "Dry wines with Florian Naß".
Outlook:
The mountains are history, and the tour winner with Roglic is almost certain.
On Friday it will be flatter, and on Saturday in the mountain time trial the man in the yellow jersey will be able to increase his lead.
The first shy congratulations to Slovenia can already be sent.
Icon: The mirror
