Benson Bulletin: Tour de France stage 11 - To wait or not to wait? 🇫🇷
Jorgenson: 'At least now Pogačar can be confident we’re trying to beat him in a sporting way'
Hi Subscribers,
An already exhilarating stage at the Tour de France took a huge turn when Tadej Pogačar crossed wheels with another rider and hit the deck inside the final 5km of racing. The incident took place outside of the final 3km, which meant that losing time was on the cards if he wasn’t able to catch the peloton.
The Slovenian hit the ground hard on his left side, and with his shifter bent and kit torn, he quickly remounted and was caught by a chasing group that included several teammates. Meanwhile, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard were up the road in the Ben Healy yellow jersey group, and with the gap to Pogačar at around 25 seconds, the general classification looked set for a major shift.
Then it wasn’t with Evenepoel, Healy and Vingegaard insisting that the group wait for the ailing world champion. Pogačar regained contact inside the last couple of kilometres and made a beeline for the UAE Team Emirates team bus, as outside the debate blew up as to whether the Slovenian’s rivals should have waited or pressed on.
The race was ‘effectively on’ after a series of stinging attacks, and as one member of our WhatsApp member group succinctly put it ‘They’ve wanted to create chaos all week to make him make a mistake and he finally does and they sit up.’
Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) won the stage, by the way, beating Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) in a two-up sprint with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin) frantically chasing them down in a brave but ultimately futile attempt to win another stage.
In today’s newsletter, we hear from Pogačar, Mauro Gianetti and the Visma and Soudal camps. Then I try my best not to sit on the fence, before we have a poll that decides who is wrong and who is right.
Read more: 🚨 Remco to Red Bull latest: Not signed but 70-80% complete ✍️
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Pogačar has friends in high places 🇸🇮
We’ll discuss what Pogačar’s rivals should have done shortly, but this is what the world champion had to say through his team's press officer. We can also confirm that his injuries seem to be minor, with the team indicating that he will not be going to the hospital for X-rays. However, as you can imagine, there were certainly some worried faces at the UAE bus in Toulouse.
"I'm quite okay. I'm a bit beaten up, but we've been through worse days. It's been a hectic day, actually, from start to finish. In the end, I had a little bit of a crash. Thanks to the peloton in front, they actually waited. Obviously, the race was more or less over back there, but still, they could take time – maybe not take too much time – but I would need to go really deep to come back like this. Really big respect to everybody in front. Thanks for your support guys,” Pogačar said.
"There were attacks from Matteo and Jonas, they really put everybody on the limit. Jonny Narváez did a super good job, he started to control a little bit the group, but of course people want to take any seconds in a final like this – they start to attack, people start to follow. Unfortunately, one rider decided to follow from left to right side of the road, and I don't know, he didn't see me, and he just completely cut me off, my front wheel. Luckily, I just have a little bit of skin off. I was scared when I saw the sidewalk that I was going with my head directly to the sidewalk, but luckily my skin is tough and stopped me before the sidewalk,” he added.
"Tomorrow is a bit day coming. We'll see how I recover. Normally the day after a crash you're never at the best, but I will give my best tomorrow and we'll see. I think we're ready as a team for Hautacam."
I’m not naming the rider Pogačar crashed into because there were reports earlier that they’d received threats. You can find their name on other outlets.
Mauro Gianetti cut a worried figure as we walked from the finish line to the team bus. He spoke to Nils Politt as soon as the German came towards him and then immediately followed Pogačar onto the team bus.
“Fortunately, there’s nothing so big and there’s no big injury, just on the arm and the side of the legs. Big was the worry in the first moment. And wow, something special happened in front bc all the leaders of the race stopped for Tadej to come back. Chapeau, this is cycling, this shows something special,” he said.
“Of course it would be a part of the race, but I think everybody sees it was not the fault of Tadej, it was just a crash that he was there. I think cycling showed again that everybody likes to play fair and make the game with the legs and the mountains and the TT and the sprint and with respect for everybody,” Gianetti said.
When asked if Pogačar had spoken to him on the bus, Gianetti replied: “Of course he was worried, but he’s ok, he says he’s ok. A crash causes a lot of worry because you never know. It can be an easy crash or a nig one. Fortunately, even though it was quite high speed, Tadej feels ok, and that’s the big news. Never, you never want a crash, it’s a complicated enough sport without that,” he said.
Would they have waited for Evenepoel? 🇧🇪
By the time I got to the Soudal Quick-Step bus, most of the riders were already on board and tucking into their post-race meals. Sports director Klaas Lodewyck was on hand, and I managed to grab a few minutes with him one-on-one.
Evenepoel was the first rider to latch onto a late attack from Vingegaard near the top of the last climb, and the Belgian was present and accounted for when the group reformed on the descent. He was just ahead of Pogačar when the Slovenian crashed.
“It was clear that after a crash like this, we would wait because all day it was hectic, and it was really dangerous, all day long. For sure, you don’t want to take time back due to a crash from a competitor, so we made it very clear to our riders that we would wait. Remco himself immediately said that we’re going to wait, and we repeated it again to our riders, so it was clear,” he told me.
I pointed out that while waiting was obviously sportsmanlike, the slowing of pace also occurred when the race was ‘on’. It’s also important to add that Healy, the race leader, also called for the pace to slow. It appears to be a collective decision.
“The win was gone; it was for the break. It was clear that some guys wanted to make something up on the last climb. It wasn’t up to us, and it was a safe moment for us so we decided not to do anything,” he said.
I asked if he or the rides had talked to Visma-Lease a Bike just before and during the slowdown.
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk. In that moment, we made our statement to our riders, and that was it. It’s Pogačar, he’s earned a lot of respect. That’s why we didn’t ride at all,” he said.
And finally, I asked him if the group would have waited for Evenepoel had the Belgian crashed.
“Yes, probably. Yes,” he said.