The Ineos Grenadiers’ hopes of dethroning Tadej Pogacar from the overall race lead in the 2021 Tour de France became a little more complicated in the stifling heat of the Pyrenean foothills after the French rider Guillaume Martin leapfrogged the podium contenders Rigoberto Urán, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz, to move into second place overall, on the eve of a key mountain stage to Andorra.
Carapaz, de facto leader of the British team after Geraint Thomas dropped out of the leading positions, has now slipped to fifth overall, five minutes and 33 seconds behind the defending champion, Pogacar. Ahead of him lie Vingegaard, of Jumbo Visma, Urán, leader of the EF Education-Nippo team, and now Martin, riding for Cofidis, who placed 11th overall in last year’s Tour.
While Martin is unlikely to be considered a threat for the overall win, his consistency means he should not be underestimated. The 28-year-old finished third in last year’s Critérium du Dauphiné and has shown steady progress, while uncertainty remains over Carapaz’s capacities and those of his depleted Ineos Grenadiers teammates.
In contrast Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates, despite being supposedly weaker than both the Ineos and Jumbo Visma lineups, maintain the upper hand.
“We already showed that we are a super strong team,” Pogacar said. “We were at the front for most of the stages and once more [today] we showed what we can do. I’m looking forward to the next days.”
The Dutch veteran Bauke Mollema won stage 14 from Carcassonne to Quillan, over a route that included five categorised climbs, but that was a mere mise-en-bouche for Sunday’s mountainous haul to Andorra. The 34-year-old, sixth overall in the 2013 Tour de France, last won a stage in 2017.
“It was a big goal to win a stage and we have a lot of guys able to do it, but you also need the legs at the right moment,” Mollema said. “You look at the Tour’s roadbook, and some stages you go a little bit easier, like the last two stages I didn’t expend any energy, because we really tried to recover as much as possible from the Mont Ventoux stage.”
The day’s 14-rider breakaway included Mollema, plus Mattia Cattaneo, teammate to Mark Cavendish at Deceuninck-Quick-Step, Wout Poels of Bahrain Victorious, Michael Woods, riding for Israel-Start Up-Nation, the Colombian Sergio Higuita, of EF Education-Nippo, and the Cofidis team leader, Martin.
As Woods and Poels focused on the King of the Mountains prize, the main peloton, containing Pogacar, was happy to let the breakaway have its head. Far behind the main bunch, Cavendish, winner in Carcassonne on Friday to equal the record number of Tour stage wins, was toiling up the climbs once again, shepherded by his Deceuninck-Quick-Step teammates.
Just moments after taking the points needed to move into the lead in the King of the Mountains, Woods crashed. On the descent of the Col du Castel, the Canadian slid to the tarmac as the breakaway rode on, but Woods and his companions had no response when Mollema went clear alone, with 41km left to race.
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The Dutch rider, past winner of stages in the Tour and the Vuelta a España, looked at ease as he soloed to victory. On the final climb of the Col de Saint-Louis Martin made up enough time to usurp Urán’s second place overall by the time he reached the finish.
On the eve of the gruelling 15th stage to Andorra, Pogacar also questioned how much energy was left in an increasingly fatigued peloton.
“I’m thinking not much,” he said. “I think everyone is really getting tired. But I have good memories of Andorra from two years ago in the Vuelta a España, with my first stage win in a Grand Tour, so I will always be happy to go back. We know the course and we are confident for the next few days.”
Pogacar was cagey when asked whom he considered the biggest threat to his control of the race, but also confident in his own strength. “I don’t know who’s the most dangerous but we saw on Mont Ventoux that Vingegaard is super-strong. But all in the top 10 are pretty dangerous because five to seven minutes is not hard to get back, if you have a bad day or they go in the breakaway.
“I’ve been attacked before, several times, but that’s part of the racing. I really enjoy it. I’m not scared.”
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