Tour de France Week 2

Stage 8 was a sprinters stage with no break forming. The first piece of action came at the intermediate sprint with Jonathan Milan taking maximum points ahead of Tim Merlier. Two riders from TotalEnergies went of the front and gained a gap of around a minute which led to them being awarded the combativity prize which would normally go to just one riders but with them both being off the front there was no way to decide. The stage came down to the inevitable bunch sprint with Jonathan Milan taking his first ever stage at the Tour, Wout Van Aert came second, a position all too normal for him. The only major change to any classification was Tadej Pogacar losing the green jersey to Milan who had been wearing it on the stage anyway.

The next stage was bound to come down to a bunch sprint but there was still a break formed by two Alpecin Deceuninck riders, Mathieu Van Der Poel and Jonas Rickaert. Rickaert was dropped first but ended up being the most combative rider of the day achieving his dream of standing on a podium at the Tour. Van Der Poel held on and was caught within the last kilometer by the sprint trains. Tim Merlier won the stage with Jonathan Milan coming in second to maintain his lead in the points classification.

The climbs were back on stage 10, a perfect stage for the breakaway. Simon Yates took the win ahead of Thymen Arensman and Ben Healy, it was the first stage for Visma at the Tour. Behind the remains of the break there was still some GC action with Vingegaard and Pogacar going clear of the rest and crossing the line with Lenny Martinez who was a member of the break. Pogacar lost the jersey to Ben Healy by 29 seconds but did he want to keep it with the pressure that comes with defending it?

Stage 11 went to the break again with Van Der Poel trying to catch them and falling short, crossing the line in third place. Jonas Abrahamsen and Mauro Schmid took it to the line resulting in a sprint between the pair. Uno-X were given their first win and Abrahamsen took his first win at the Tour.

The first mountains came on stage 12 and it was no surprise that it became a GC race. The breakaway was caught, Einer Rubio from Movistar was the highest placed finishing in 11th. Ben Healy lost the yellow jersey after finishing over 13 minutes down of Pogacar. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Jonas Vingegaard being dropped and losing over 2 minutes to Pogacar who won the stage taking his third this year as well as the GC lead and lead in the mountains classification.

The second time trial came on stage 13 and while the first few kilometers were flat, majority of the stage was a long climb up a mountain meaning it was always going to be a stage for the GC riders. Primoz Roglic set a good time and was able to finish third on the day. Remco Evenepoel on the other hand was overtaken by Jonas Vingegaard who started 2 minutes after him and finished in 12th place. Pogacar won the stage and put over half a minute into Vingegaard bringing his lead up to 4:07. It was only the second stage in the mountains but Pogacar already has a considerable lead.

Stage 14 was the last day in the Pyrenees and Lenny Martinez went off the front in the break to sweep up as many KOM points as he could to gain the jersey from Pogacar who held it as a by product of winning the past two stages. The breakaway fell apart but the Thymen Arensman who was in it crossed the line first, ahead of the GC riders who started to fight on the last climb. Tadej Pogacar gained 6 seconds over Vingegaard and the duo crossed the line in second and third. Florian Lipowitz moved up into third overall and first in the youth classification after Evenepoel abandoned the race.

The last stage before the rest day was another day for the breakaway which took a while to form. There were multiple crashes and groups all over the road suggesting that the peloton was tired after the mountains. Once it was clear that the group at the front would take the win they started to attack each other allowing a group containing Wout Van Aert to slowly catch up. By the time he had reached them Tim Wellens had gone off the front and had built up a lead of over a minute. Wellens crossed the line first with Victor Campenaerts coming second, third place went to Julian Alaphilippe who believed he had won after his radio broke in an earlier crash.

Classification Leaders:

General: Tadej Pogacar

Points: Jonathan Milan

Mountain: Lenny Martinez

Youth: Florian Lipowitz

Teams: Visma Lease A Bike

Further Dropouts:

(DNS Stage 8) Eddie Dunbar - Team Jayco AlUla

(DNF Stage 9) Joao Almeida - UAE Team Emirates XRG

(DNS Stage 10) Georg Zimmermann - Intermarche-Wanty

(DNS Stage 10) Marijn Van Den Berg - EF Education Easypost

(DNF Stage 10) Soren Waerenskjold - Uno-X Mobility (DNS Stage 12) Cees Bol - XDS Astana

(DNS Stage 14) Bryan Coquard - Cofidis (DNF Stage 14) Remco Evenepoel - Soudal Quick-Step (DNF Stage 14) Steff Cras - Team TotalEnergies

(DNF Stage 14) Mattias Skjelmose - Lidl-Trek

(DNS Stage 15) Lennert Van Eetvelt - Lotto