Key events
155km to go: Here go three men good and true in another attempt to establish a break. The gap is eight seconds but climbs to 25. Meurrise, Haller and Hirschi are those up in the vanguard. Marc Hirschi won on stage 11 in 2020, a hilly stage ending in Sarran.
165km to go: Lenny Martinez is up the front, and will fancy another breakaway to land his polka points. The breaks aren’t snagging just yet. Montpellier is left behind as the Med coast appears in view. It looks ridiculously beautiful.
Huw Morgan gets in touch: “Work web filtering means I’m on the live updates only. My colleague Libby has wisely chosen to WFH so she can watch it. I’m not so lucky with a board meeting to attend at 3pm. I’ve been following cycling for 3 years now and I’ve never seen a stage like this. Flat, flat, flat, BANG. Absolutely buzzing to watch it with my wife when I get home from work! We’re Pogacar super fans but hoping for a real tussle on Ventoux with Pog losing some time.”
Off we go in Montpellier
171.2 km to go: Christian Prudhomme waves them away, and off goes an immediate breakaway, with Wout van Aert among them. Ivan Romeo is there, too, as is Jonathan Milan, still fighting off Pogacar.
Strava’s read on the Ventoux climb.
Any segment where Tadej Pogačar is No1 on the leaderboard is going to hurt – his time of exactly 1 hour for this 13.4 mile / 21.5km climb during the 2021 Tour is almost unfathomable. But put that time to one side and concentrate on the road in front of you, as this climb is known as the ‘Beast of Provence’ for a reason: the last 3.7 miles / 6km are painful, and mentally you should prepare yourself.
The views up to that point are largely forest-based, but once you exit the trees you’re in a dusty, rock-strewn lunar landscape, exposed to potentially strong winds, low temperatures and hovering clouds. Look out for Tom Simpson’s memorial, as that means you have just 1km left to the summit where your legs can rest.
Van der Poel pulls out with pneumonia
The Dutchman has been diagnosed with pneumonia and will not start Stage 16 on Tuesday, having been a leading light and worn yellow in Le Tour’s opening week.
“Mathieu had been experiencing symptoms of a common cold over the past few days. Yesterday afternoon, his condition began to worsen significantly.” his Alpecin-Deceuninck team said in a statement. He was third in the points classification for the green jersey at the time of his withdrawal, behind Jonathan Milan and Tadej Pogacar.
There’s 8km to go until the départ réel, when the attacks are expected from the get-go.
Nick Wayne gets in touch: “I suppose it’s a sign of maturity if he saves his energy for the Alps. It would also make for a cracking stage win if he blasts out of the pedals a few K before the line. “
Pogacar has sat up the last two stages, allowed the breakaway to go.
Is the race for the yellow jersey over? Not according to Jonas Vingegaard, the two-time winner promising to go for broke.
“We have to try to do something,” he said, and insisted that he was willing to risk everything to win. “There needs to be a weakness somewhere on Tadej’s part. For now, we haven’t found it, but we’ll keep trying. I’m willing to sacrifice second place to go for first.”
William Fotheringham on the legend of Ventoux.
Tempora mutantur, but not the Ventoux. That, partly, reflects one of the key features of the Tour; the way it constantly revisits and rewrites its past in places that have barely changed since the first visit. Go round the partly banked corner at Saint-Estève and on to the virtually straight haul through the oak-wooded lower slopes, and it’s essentially the same brutal experience that the stars of the 50s, 60s and 70s might have undergone, perhaps with better tarmac as you go up with barely a hairpin to break the gradient until the final haul across the scree slopes to the top.
Preamble
Here then, is the Alpine stage that rivals only Alpe d’Huez for its place in folklore of Le Tour. And unlike L’Alpe, visits are far rarer. As the riders head towards the summit finish, they will visit terrain that bears closes resemblance to the surface of the Moon rather than the sweeping greenery of le belle campagne. It was last the finish of a stage in 2016, won by Thomas de Gendt, but memorable for Chris Froome running up that hill. The man in the frame today is Tadej Pogacar, and he seeks to emulate the greats in winning on Ventoux, which he climbed up – and twice – in 2021, smashing the field as he did. Poulidor, Merckx and Pantani all raised their arms in victory in that rarified air so can he?
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