An ultra-aggressive Visma-Lease a Bike in stage 17 of the Tour de France saw the team place several riders in breakaways as the race headed back into the mountains, with Wout van Aert once again showing signs of rising form.
However, while the stage win eventually ended in a lone victory for Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Visma leader Jonas Vingegaard struggled a little to stay in touch with the other podium contenders, a worrying omen given the toughest days in the Alps are yet to come.
Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) both managed to distance the Dane on the hardest ascent of the day, the cat1 Col de Noyer. Although Vingegaard subsequently regained contact, Evenepoel then went clear again on the Superdévoluy ascent.
While finally, Evenepoel gained 12 seconds on Vingegaard to close the gap slightly overall, Pogačar also snatched a couple of seconds on his arch-rival in the final dash for the line. Visma-Lease A Bike’s colossal effort in the first part of the day then ultimately backfired a little, although their all-out attempt to disrupt the stage did make for some spectacular racing - and also showed an admirably stubborn refusal to keep fighting in the Tour to the bitter end.
“Of course, we wanted to try to go for the stage with me, Tiesj [Benoot] and some other riders,” Van Aert told reporters after he, Benoot and Christophe Laporte all tried, with varying degrees of success and duration, to make it into the early and mid-race moves.
“But it was really difficult to create a break today. There were so many people interested, obviously. We tried to protect Tiesj when he got away, but there weren’t so many teams in his move, and it never really calmed down behind, either.
“Then at a certain point later on, there was another big group with me and Christophe, but I already knew it would be difficult with so many good climbers there.”
Benoot’s four-man move was the one which stayed away the longest before disintegrating on the lower slopes of the Col de Noyer when Simon Yates (Jayco-AIUIa) and Richard Carapaz scorched through the leading break to fight it out for the stage win. Meanwhile, Pogačar himself went on the rampage in the GC group, timed at some eight minutes behind.
“At first, I didn’t see the attacks at all because I was in front of them,” Van Aert recounted. “We always expect Pogačar to race aggressively, so we always expect them. I’ll have to talk to Jonas to hear what happened, but it was good that me, Tiesj and Christophe were at the front of the race so we could still give him a hand in the final.
"I would have had a chance with that group," Benoot said at the finish, "but when that big group came back, I knew it would be harder with guys like Richard Carapaz and Simon Yates. They flew straight past me.”
Arguably more important, in any case, was that both he and Van Aert were up there ahead of the GC group. That meant they were subsequently perfectly placed to try and protect Vingegaard on a stage where the Dane was not, by his own admission, on a great day.
"That was also our top priority,” Benoot confirmed, “to be there to protect Jonas in case something like that happened in the final, and I’m glad we could help him."
Van Aert added, "It's good that we were there because Jonas had a few difficult moments, I think.
Van Aert’s teammate Bart Lemmen also told reporters, “I heard Jonas lost a little bit of time. so that’s not good, of course, although it wasn’t too much.
“We wanted to see what was possible in the breaks with our riders rather than ride offensively [with Vingegaard], but it was tough with the wind and all the riders jumping around for two and a half hours. In the end, it’s a pity we lost a bit of time, but the last two big mountain stages [19 and 20] will suit Jonas better.
“Whenever someone is making it hard, you have to expect that they will attack,” VIngegaard himself commented to reporters in a brief interview.
“I thought that Tadej would close the gap [on Evenepoel], but I have to thank my teammates a lot, actually, also on the top there [of the Noyer] when Christophe helped me as well as later on.”
As for whether he could still get better in what remains of the third week - as was widely predicted as possible given his unusual approach path to the Tour de France following his terrible crash and injuries in Itzulia-Basque Country in April - Vingegaard remained upbeat.
“I still feel like I’m improving. Today was maybe not my best day, but still, once in a while you have a bad day. And if this was my bad day, then I’m happy.”
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