[jyl]

What a stage.

I thought Girmay’s group would catch and he’d outsprint MVP for his third win, then I thought Evenepol would TT away, then I thought Pogacar would drop Vingegaard and Evenepol, then for a long time I thought Stuyven would pull off a solo win.

Great Tour for the French!

Pleasantly few crashes, they handled the gravel well. Visma’s rouleurs did better for Vingegaard than UAE’s climbers did for Pogacar. Without his domestiques closing the gap, Vingegaard would have lost Pogacar I think. UAE’s guys burned themselves out before they were able to burn out Visma’s guys, so Vingegaard (almost) always had a man to send after Pogacar.

Kind of disappointing to see no change in the top GC gaps after such a hard fought stage, but it was good defensive riding by Vingegaard on a parcours on which his goal would been to not lose too much time to Pogacar, who has won Strade Bianchi x2. After flatting and continuing on a teammate’s bike, Vingegaard could have been in real trouble, but he managed to lose no time and Pogacar can’t be thrilled about that. When the race heads into the mountains, Vingegaard will have his chances.