Analysis: Why sprint stages could become the Tour de France’s new breakaway battleground
Pogačar and UAE have the race bending to their will. Insight from Bennett, Plapp and Southam on how that could alter the blueprint of sprint stages
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On paper, stage 12 of the Tour de France, between Circuit Nevers Magny-Cours and Chalon-sur-Saône, should come down to a bunch sprint.
Sure, there are a handful of small categorised climbs that litter the parcours, but with less than 1,500m of vertical climbing and the bunch sprinters eager to contest another finish, this should have a bunch sprint written all over it.
However, this year’s Tour has built on a dynamic that has evolved over the past few years. Traditional breakaway stages have become GC battlegrounds, with Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG intent on maximising every opportunity to win. As a result, we’ve seen just two breakaways make it to the line, with Mads Pedersen winning in Foix and an unstoppable Mathieu van der Poel holding off the peloton by just a handful of seconds in Ussel.
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As we saw on stage 3 and again on stage 10, UAE are content to keep a break in check and then set a tempo that shatters the will of those up the road. That blueprint is likely to carry on well into the second week, and perhaps all the way to Alpe d’Huez, where Pogačar will surely want to win for the first time in his career.
At the finish of stage 10 I caught up with Luke Plapp. The Australian had been in the first wave of attacks and was one of the 31 riders who had established a slender lead on the peloton before UAE pulled on the throttle and ended the group’s initial resistance. Pogačar eventually went on to win his third stage of this year’s race.
“And if I was him I’d be doing the same thing,” Plapp told me as he handed a bidon to a small child who had been waiting patiently.
“It’s a bit negative that some say there’s a stranglehold. It’s the biggest race, it’s the Tour de France, and if I could win every stage I’d do the same. So, obviously, it would be nice if we had opportunities, if there were other people winning, and if I had a chance, but if I were them, I’d be racing the exact same way. I don’t blame UAE at all for how they are racing. Everyone prepares and commits for the race, and if you asked anyone next to you if they’d give away a stage, they’d probably say so. I have no problem with how they race,” he told me.