A stage marked for the sprinters that wasn’t.
It’s stage 18 and there are 20 kilometers left as a break of four riders race to the finish in Bourg-en-Bresse Forty seconds behind, the sprinter teams take turns trying to shut down the escape.
It’s a math and manpower equation. The day is supposed to belong to the fastmen like Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), Mad Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Christophe Laporte (Jumb0-Visma) and the green jersey of Jasper Philipsen, already with four stage wins in this Tour.
The probabilities and percentages all point to that break of four being snuffed out. However, there are two factors working in favor of the escape. First, it’s the third week of what has been a brutally hard and fast Tour. Yesterday, the peloton was forced to tackle the two category one mountain climbs and then the hors category Col de la Loze — where Tadej Pogacar lost over five minutes to Jonas Vingegaard.
In other words, there is an overabundance of dead legs.
Second, the composition of the break includes two riders who are specialist against the clock and capable of maintaining a high speed for however long it takes to win. There’s Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), a former World Hour record holder, and Kaspar Asgreen (Soudal-Quickstep), the reigning Danish national time trial champion. That’s the kind of firepower that holds a chasing peloton at bay.
These two gentleman are joined by Campenaerts’ teammate Pascal Eenkhoorn and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X). They worked smoothly together with a determination and belief that they’d outsmart and out-power Philipsen and company.
At ten kilometers to go, the gap was twenty seconds and shrinking fast — 13 seconds at 5k, 6 seconds at 2k. It was going down to a high tension wire. Campenaerts does one, final, desperate pull to give his teammate Eenkhoorn a shot at victory.
But instead it’s Asgreen who comes around Eenkhoorn for the win, with Abrahamsen third. The big-hearted Campenaerts is swallowed up by the charging sprinters and finishes 16th. If there was a MVP award for the stage, it’s Campenaerts who should get an extra glass of champagne tonight.
Asgreen knew he owed his first grand tour stage win his friends in the break. “It was a team time trial to the finish – I really couldn’t have done it without Pascal, Victor and Jonas. They all did amazing out there. We all deserved to win with the work we put out there,” he said. “I’m really happy to come away with the win.
Chapeau Pascal, Victor, Jonas and Kasper. You prevented Jasper Philipsen from winning his fifth stage this this year’s Tour de France. That’s an impressive victory in and of itself.
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