In Montbard, not far from the start, the main street is called Michel Servet and one would expect, given the huge number of learned physiologists per square metre in the Tour caravan, that they would all have gathered en masse in one of the immense fields of rye surrounding the peaceful little village to pay homage to the Aragonese genius who, before being burned at the stake for heresy, taught them about pulmonary circulation, so important for a phenomenon like Biniam Girmay, a bomb in a sprint uphill, and the Cross of Lorraine of the village of General De Gaulle, French president at the time of decolonisation of his continent, who showed him the way, to feed his muscles for the splendid effort that led him, 180 kilometres further on, to win his second stage in the Tour.
The Eritrean, the herald of African cycling that wants to have a life of its own, is the first to repeat victory in this Tour, and is launching himself for the green jersey. In the final straight, five kilometres of slides and headwinds, he found no rivals other than those betrayed by his eagerness, such as Arnaud de Lie, the Bull of Lescheret, a compact sprinter of dynamite and favourite of the day, who used up all his energy riding in the lead on the many steep slopes and who not even the phenomenal work of Victor Campenaerts, his trusted boy, the cyclist with laces on his black shoes, could get past a collision when he tried to pass between Philipsen, who was hasty at the start of the sprint, and Girmay, who was coming back.
There were no physiologists in the desert at noon in Montbard under the downpour, but there was, surprisingly, a breakaway. Rather, a single escapee, the Norwegian with polka dots Jonas Abrahamsen, king of the climbs and of combativeness, whom the peloton, happy to have a target, kept in a bain-marie until 14 kilometres to go. “There are no breakaways,” explained Girmay, “because all the teams either have a sprinter or have people for the general, and they cannot waste their people.” This fact annoys the leader, Tadej Pogacar, who likes the peloton to be organized, each in his place, each with his mission in it, and, helped also by the carefree way with which his UAE handles the reins, he always finds himself in chaotic and out-of-place situations, and only sometimes.
In the press room – located under the immense granite cross of Lorraine (two horizontal arms) in the pharaonic space dedicated by its people, Colombey les Deux Églises, to General De Gaulle, who spent his summers and retreats there, and it is almost a religious sanctuary to the greater glory of the theorist of the grandeur Pogacar symbolically donned the general’s cap with the two stars and, without needing to climb into the shiny black Citroën Shark on display, gave his approval for Sunday’s battle of the white roads, “one more obstacle,” he says. “As in any other stage, many things can happen and you have to be prepared, focused from start to finish. It’s not that complicated, but it can get complicated,” he stressed, and recalled the young Ayuso and Almeida, and their alleged temptations to organize a May 68, who is in charge at the UAE. “We have a very strong team. We have João, Juan and also Adam [Yates] “We are very close in the general classification. We have very good cards,” he said. “And for now, the atmosphere is still quite good. But we will see what the mood will be like in the last week. It is the first time I am racing with both of them, João and Juan, together, and I have never raced much with Juan. I think everything will go well. We all know why we are here and what the main objective is.”
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