Five times fuelling changed the race

At the top level of bike racing, fuelling properly and at the right time is vital.

Riders at top-level races such as the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, and the Giro d'Italia take on an endless number of water bottles, energy drinks, snacks, and energy bars day after day in order to perform at their best and keep energy levels up for brutal mountain ascents and fast finishes.

Countless hours go into the science and preparation behind keeping the pro peloton fully fuelled during the WorldTour season. Success in this field is easily overlooked - as when riders fuel properly everything simply seems to go to plan and we don't dwell on when and how they took their final gel. But sometimes even the best laid plans can go awry, and nutrition is no exception.

Perhaps the best proof of how critical proper fuelling is to a race strategy is when teams and riders fall foul of regulations on feeding – usually in place to prevent team cars from mingling with the peloton late on in races and to ensure finales are all about the racing. Remarkably, some teams will risk time penalties to ensure that riders get that critical gel or food on board at the right moment. 

But as damaging as those penalties may be, they can pale in comparison with the time losses when a rider or team completely miscalculate fuelling strategies or simply forget to eat during a hectic, fast-paced race.

With that in mind, we've compiled a short list of some of the most famous fuelling mishaps of recent years. It's not comprehensive, of course, and there are plenty of occasions of hunger knocks striking the best of the best littering cycling history

In recent years, we've witnessed riders fall out of contention at vital moments after hitting the wall due to hunger and riders even losing stage races, or the Tour de France yellow jersey thanks to missed meals or illegal late feeds.

Read on for our list of five times fuelling changed the race.

Tom Pidcock at the 2022 Tour of Flanders

The most recent rider to suffer a high-profile hunger knock during a race was Tom Pidcock in the Tour of Flanders just last month.

The Ineos Grenadiers leader was among the top favourites at the race heading into the cobbled Monument, even if he lay behind the 'big three' of Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, and Wout van Aert in the pecking order.

However, he wasn't able to have any effect in the final of the race, dropping at 42km to go when Pogačar, Van der Poel and Van Aert went on the attack, with the Slovenian going on to solo to a famous win.

Instead, Pidcock went backwards in the final hour, eventually finishing eight minutes down in 52nd place. He'd later take to social media to explain that he hadn't fuelled properly during the 274km race.

"What a job these boys did yesterday," Pidcock wrote. "Unfortunately, I couldn't repay them. It was all mint until I had a complete hunger flat. I'm amazed I even made it to the finish. A stupid mistake, but there's always next year."

It's a harsh lesson to learn at one of the biggest races of the spring Classics, but one that Pidcock will take forward.

Julian Alaphilippe at the 2020 Tour de France

Three years ago, Tour de France race leader Julian Alaphilippe unexpectedly lost his yellow jersey on a fairly straightforward sprint stage 5 in Privas.

The Frenchman didn't crash or drop from the peloton though – instead, he was served with a 20-second time penalty after taking an illegal feed in the final 20km of the 183km stage, won by Wout van Aert.

Alaphilippe, who held the race lead for 10 days the previous summer, ceded the lead to Adam Yates following the penalty, which was handed down after he took a bidon at 17km to go.

After jumping into yellow following his stage 2 win in Nice, Alaphilippe didn't regain yellow or win another stage through the remainder of the race, though would go on to win the World Championships in Imola a week after the end of the Tour.

"Not at all. Not at all," Alaphilippe said when asked if he felt he had done something wrong. "But voila, if that’s how it is then no worries, tomorrow I'll pick myself back up and we won't talk about it anymore." Meanwhile, Yates, who held the lead for four days, said, "I don't think any rider would want to take the jersey like this."

Chris Froome at the 2013 Tour de France

Chris Froome's first Tour de France win a decade ago didn't go off entirely without a hitch. Even if the Sky leader was 4:34 up on his nearest rival Alberto Contador heading into the stage 18 summit finish at l'Alpe d'Huez, he still had to contend with a hunger knock on the climb before rallying around with a late – albeit illegal – late feed.

He and teammate Richie Porte were up the road and gaining time on Froome's GC rivals when he got into trouble in the final 5km of the climb. The Australian had taken food from the team car and handed it over to Froome, meaning they both fell foul of the rule prohibiting feeding from team cars within the final 6km of the stage.

Despite a 20-second penalty, though, Froome still managed to end the day with his lead extended to a massive 5:11 over Contador, his first Tour title all but in the bag. A timely energy boost might have just made the difference on the famous mountain.

"At the end of the day a rule is a rule and if I’ve been given 20 seconds, I'll have to take that, but if you look at the technicality it was actually Richie Porte who fed from the car not myself," Froome said later.

"I'm just happy to get through the stage and come out of it with more of an advantage than I went into it."

Julian Alaphilippe at the 2021 Tour de Suisse

Alaphilippe was at it again the summer after his Tour de France mishap when he grabbed a bidon and energy gel from the QuickStep team car inside the final 10km from the Tour de Suisse stage 5 summit finish at Leukerbad.

Lying third overall at the time, he was in the midst of a podium battle, and was quickly exchanging heated words with the race director's car after being caught taking the late feed.

"Apparently it was no longer authorised," Alaphilippe said later. "I'd just thrown my bidon, I needed to drink, so I took it. Apparently, I've been penalised but that doesn't change anything at all."

Alaphilippe fell from third to fourth overall and would continue in the race for another two days before withdrawing ahead of the final stage to head home for the birth of his child. He'd go on to win the opening stage and take another yellow jersey at the Tour de France the next month.

Alberto Contador at the 2009 Paris-Nice

In 2009, Alberto Contador was at the peak of his powers, having completed the Grand Tour treble a year earlier along with his second Vélo d'Or title as the best rider in the world.

That didn't protect him from a fairly basic error of forgetting to fuel, though. Contador lost a second consecutive Paris-Nice title on the penultimate day of the race, losing almost three minutes to stage and overall winner Luis León Sánchez.

The mistake saw Lance Armstrong infamously say that his then Astana teammate "has a lot to learn", hinting at a rivalry that would grow through the year and come to a head at the Tour de France.

For his part, Contador gave a straightforward explanation of the day's events, with no excuses for his race-losing error.

"From the beginning, it was a very fast race and I forgot to eat and drink as much as I should have done," he said. "Therefore, in the final 10km, I was left with no strength. I was totally empty. I'm not even disappointed. These kind of things are part of cycling. In sport, we can't always win."