Once again, the conditions that accompanied the peloton to Saint-Gaudens on Tuesday were unfavorable. It crashed and poured, and the wind was so strong in between that a few barriers fell over shortly before the goal. The treacherous descent from Col d’Aspet, on which Fabio Casartelli had a fatal accident in 1995, 30 kilometers before the stage finale, was particularly slippery. It almost seemed as if the group of the best in the classification had agreed on a kind of pause because of the conditions and the two difficult stages in the Pyrenees. But shortly before the goal there was again unrest. At the last small elevation there was another attack, but all relevant forces were vigilant – and so the top ten of the overall standings around the leader Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia) crossed the finish line in Saint-Gaudens together.
Barely fifteen minutes earlier, the Austrian Patrick Konrad, 29, from the German Bora-Hansgrohe team, had celebrated his greatest career success to date: he arrived there as a soloist, 42 seconds ahead of the Italian Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain) and behind quite a power output. After numerous attacks in the initial phase, a breakaway group had roped off at some point, but Konrad was not yet one of them. He followed up with a second group, only then went solo to the leading trio – and then broke away from it. “I’m a little speechless,” said Konrad, who has been a professional since 2016 and whose father Wolfgang was already an athlete – in 1980 he took part in the 3000-meter obstacle course at the Olympic Games in Moscow.
A little provocation from Pogacar
This year’s France ribbon is extremely successful for Konrad’s Bora team, despite the unfortunate appearance of Captain Peter Sagan, who has since got out injured and will now also miss the Olympic Games due to a knee operation. Konrad’s success was already the second win of the day for the Raublinger – after the successful solo by Nils Politt from Cologne last Thursday in Nimes. In addition, climber Wilco Kelderman is still sixth in the overall standings, just 44 seconds behind a podium.
In any case, the two decisive days are now in the battle for the top spots. Leader Pogacar tackles these challenges with more than five minutes ahead of his opponents Rigoberto Uran, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz – and the Slovenian could not resist a little provocation the night before. “So far, the other teams haven’t shown the best tactics,” he said at Saint-Gaudens. A dreaded double strike from Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden awaits on Thursday, but on Wednesday the queen’s stage, which ends on the Col du Portet. Some forecasts predict just four degrees and possibly even light snowfall. But one thing is clear: there will be no pausing among the class riders.
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