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Friday, July 5, 2024

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2023 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire

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Bill and Carol McGann's book The Story of the Tour de France, 2019: A Year of New Faces is available in both Kindle eBook and audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

Current racing:

• June 29 - July 21: Tour de France

Upcoming racing:

• July 27 - August 11: Olympic cycling

Latest completed racing:

• June 9 - 26: Many National Championships
• June 15 - 18: La Route d'Occitanie Cancelled because security forces busy with Olympics
• June 9 - 16: Tour de Suisse
• June 12 - 16: Baloise Belgium Tour
• June 2 - 9: Critérium du Dauphiné
• June 5 - 9: ZLM Tour
• June 7: GP Canton Aargau
• June 2: Brussels Cycling Classic

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Tour de France stage 6 reports

We posted the race organizer's report with the results.

Here's the Tour report from stage winner Dylan Groenewegen's Team Jayco AlUla:

Dutch champion Dylan Groenewegen delivered a superb and emotional win for Team Jayco AlUla on stage six of the Tour de France, ahead of the world’s best sprinters in Dijon.

It is the sixth-career stage victory for the 31-year-old, and his first in the colours of Dutch national champion after taking the title last month.

There were some tense moments as the stage came down to a photo finish between Groenewegen and Jasper Philipsen. After a nerve-wracking wait the Dutch powerhouse was declared the winner.

Dylan Groenewegen enjoys his stage win. Sirotti photo

Stage six of the Tour de France was almost pan-flat, and the bunch rode a relatively easy pace for most of the day. However, with a breeze in the air, there was some tension among the riders that was realised when the peloton broke apart in crosswinds.

The race eventually came back together, and Team Jayco AlUla worked to bring Groenewegen into a prime position ahead of the expected sprint finish.

Groenewegen didn’t have the chance to unleash his mighty sprint yet in the Tour de France, but with some clean air in front of him he was able to light up the afterburners. The Dutchman accelerated hard towards the line, scoring the team’s 19th victory of the season.

Dylan Groenewegen:
“It was really close in the end. Before, I said it would be a nice victory in the red, white, and blue jersey (of Dutch national champion), but in the end it was so close that I couldn’t celebrate on the finish line. I know the legs were really good, I know I have a really strong team, but there are other strong sprinters. Yesterday, Mark Cavendish was really strong and today Jasper Philipsen was really hard to beat, but in the end, we got the victory, which is really important for us.”

Matt White (Director of High Performance and Racing):
“This is win number 19 but I think we’d trade the other 18 wins for this one. The boys did stay patient. It was a very messy sprint but the main thing is that he got there fresh and he got open air because he’s got a lot of speed. He’s changed his training this year, pulled back on the volume a little bit and really focused on what his biggest quality is and that is speed. He showed a clean set of heels.

"It’s hard to win here, it’s never easy to win. A lot of your year is judged on these three weeks and to get a win in the can so early is great. There are more sprint opportunities to come and opportunities for other riders.”

Here’s the Tour stage six report from Remco Evenepoel's Team Soudal Quick-Step:

Thursday’s run from Mâcon to Dijon was a flat one, perfect for the sprinters to fight again, although another scenario was likely, due to the presence of some strong winds in the second part of the stage. For that reason, there weren’t too many breakaway attempts, the one or two attacks that came early being easily nullified by the peloton.

Around 80 kilometers from the finish, the peloton split as soon as the wind picked up, leaving only 60 riders in the main group. Remco Evenepoel was there, surrounded by Soudal Quick-Step teammates Yves Lampaert and Gianni Moscon, who kept him well-placed on the exposed roads of Burgundy. The gap between the group quickly went up to twenty seconds, but the chasers managed to make it back once the riders made right and the wind changed direction.

Remco Evenepoel in white. Sirotti photo.

The peloton was expecting more crosswinds in the final 40 kilometers, but this threat failed to materialise and they continued as one until Dijon, where the Tour de France returned after 27 years. Unlike 1997 when the breakaway prevailed, this time the victor emerged after another mass gallop, won by Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla). The Soudal Quick-Step boys all came home together, and Remco made a visit to the podium to take his fifth white jersey, which he will sport during Friday’s individual time trial.

Here's the Tour report from Team Visma | Lease a Bike:

Wout van Aert finished sixth in the sixth stage of the Tour de France. Along the way, Team Visma | Lease a Bike showed they were on the attent in some nervous phases of the stage.

With the side winds picking up, the danger of echelons was there more than once halfway through the stage. With eighty kilometers to go, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike team took control of the race. The peloton broke into two pieces, but after about twenty kilometers everything melted together again and relative calm returned.

Everything pointed to a third bunch sprint in this Tour. And so it came. In the final kilometer, Van Aert cleverly made his way to the front row. The Belgian was in a good position in the last corner and then set up a powerful sprint. A hundred meters from the finish, Van Aert was forced to abandon his sprint because he was boxed in by Jasper Philipsen, who was disqualified moments later. As a result, sixth place proved to be the maximum possible, one day before the first time trial of the Tour de France.

"I'm glad the good feeling returned to my legs today," Van Aert stated after the ride. "The last two days the feeling was a little less. It was a hectic day, mainly due to the interference of the crosswind. As a team we were always in the positions where we wanted to be. I can also be satisfied with the level of my sprint. In the first stage I already showed that I have a good final shot. It's something I can move forward with."

Jonas Vingegaard at the stage start. Sirotti photo

Jonas Vingegaard tells his findings about the sixth stage after coming in. "It was a stressful day because of the wind. We saw our chance as a team along the way to give it a try. Very briefly it actually went on the side. As a team we rode a strong stage today."

The duo from Team Visma | Lease a Bike are already looking ahead to tomorrow, when a ride against the clock of over 25 kilometers is scheduled.

"I did not do a recon of the course yet," Vingegaard says. "That was on the planning, but because of the crash in the spring it didn't come up. By my estimation, it's not super technical. It's a bit of a hilly course, but nevertheless I expect it to be a fast time trial. I definitely put Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar among the favorites for tomorrow. I'm going to do my very best to get the best possible result."

"Tomorrow's time trial is going to be a very important day in this Tour," Van Aert spoke in turn. "It's a course for the typical time trial riders with long straights and beautiful and hilly roads. The climb in the middle is going to provide the most differences. I want to go full gas and see how far I can get."

And here's the stage six report from Team dsm-Firmenich PostNL:

The Tour de France was expected to see another sprint finish at today’s sixth stage, with the possibility of echelons adding something extra to the sprint mix. The race was hectic all day as all teams were aware of the potential crosswinds, but Team dsm-firmenich PostNL stayed calm and rode well together. When the race split up coming into the final 80 kilometres, they had five guys in the first split before everything rolled back together. The pace in the peloton remained high ahead of the expected bunch sprint, so no attacks were able to go clear and everyone approached the final together. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL did a good job sticking together and moving up towards the sprint inside the final kilometre. They had to pay for that effort a bit and couldn’t contest for the victory today, but this was another promising and committed team performance to build on for the next opportunities.

The big stage 6 sprint. 107 riders were given the same finishing time. Sirotti photo

Speaking after the stage, road captain John Degenkolb said: “It was a super stressful and hectic day today due to the expected crosswinds. We rode really well as a team and even when we saw some splits opening, we were in the front group with multiple guys. Coming towards the finish, we also managed to stick to each other really well. We must now fine-tune how we take on the finals to be able to bring Fabio [Jakobsen] with fresher legs into the sprint so he can contest the victory. Today we came from too far back, but we were all together, so that is a positive thing to take out of today. I am confident that we will get there.”

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