The sprint chances are few on this year’s Tour de France and stage 13 looked like one of them but a number of factors worked against the peloton and into the hands of the breakaway.
BikeExchange-Jayco’s late arrival to the chase could be counted among them.
Through the early stages of the lumpy 192.6km ride from Bourg d'Oisans to Saint-Etienne, Lotto Soudal and Alpecin-Deceuninck worked at the front to try and keep the breakaway in check. But then Caleb Ewan crashed and despite attempts to make it back to the peloton – and attempts by the Alpecin-Deceuninck team car to help him – Ewan was out of the running.
Alpecin-Deceuninck then struggled to find allies for the chase. Jumbo-Visma, despite having the green-jersey clad Wout van Aert as a serious prospect, had bigger goals than a stage win on their mind. QuickStep-AlphaVinyl’s Fabio Jakobsen looked to be struggling to hold on through the climbs. There was also no sign of BikeExchange-Jayco, who appeared to have two solid options for the day with stage 3 winner Dylan Groenewegen and Michael Matthews if the climbs proved too hard for the pure sprinter.
Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ), Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) and Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech) took advantage of the hesitation.
They crested the climb of the Côte de Saint-Romain-en-Gal with just over 40km to go, their gap extending to three-and-a-half minutes. They knew they had a chance to fight for the stage victory and pushed on at speed.
BikeExchange-Jayco eventually came to the front to chase after the climb, hoping that Groenewegen could win the sprint but their chance had gone.
“It was a tricky one, it was always going to be touch and go. We had to wait and see if Dylan was going to pass the category 3 climb,” said Head Sport Director at BikeExchange-Jayco, Matt White.
“A lot of things happened during that stage today with Caleb Ewan crashing and the chase being disrupted by that. Then we thought we would give it a try to bring it back.”
The team lined up on the front after the Côte de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, led by Amund Grøndahl Jansen, Chris Juul-Jensen and Jack Bauer. They pushed the pace on the front, and it did have an impact, pulling the gap back to around two minutes, but eventually the work took its toll.
It was then down to key lead-out men Luka Mezgec and Matthews to continue the chase and with 15km to go, and still a gap of more than two minutes, the team soon decided to call it a day on what was now looking a futile task.
“We didn’t have the horsepower to bring it back,” admitted White.
“But the boys gave it a 100% and got down to two minutes but the strength of the guys out the front in the last hour of racing – it was just too much to bring back.”
Pedersen took the victory from the break and there was no sign of a long-awaited bunch sprint, which means the wait is now on for Sunday’s stage to Carcassonne.
“The breakaway was really strong and you know when this break was going it's hard to catch them back,” said Groenewegen in an interview after the stage.
“We tried in the end, maybe I say it a little too late, but more chances are coming.”
