Stage 20 GC battles. They're something we all hope for in Grand Tours, that the fight for yellow or pink or red comes down to the final day of 'real' racing. This year's Giro d'Italia, the 2020 Tour de France, and the 2023 Giro. These races all treated us to last-minute lead changes, and the most thrilling way a Grand Tour can end.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of some, that's not how this Tour de France ended, because Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) entered stage 20 4:24 up on Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) after a stalemate in the Alps, and the penultimate stage didn't touch the mountains anyway.
No stage 20 GC battle this year then, right? Well, not quite.
In the enduring peculiarity of the Tour de France, there was actually a small fight – and a change of placings – on the road to Pontarlier on Saturday. Not for the podium, not even for the top five. No, this was about who would finish 10th, half an hour down on the winner.
Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla) started the stage in 10th, which was something of an accident anyway, given he had started with a GC focus, then gave up on that after a crash hampered his performance in the first week, but then found himself back in the top 10 after winning stage 18 to up the Col de la Loze.
Speaking after that stage, O'Connor seemed to say that he didn't care much about the minor placings, having come fourth at the 2021 Tour and been on Grand Tour podiums in the past, but on Saturday, when 11th-placed Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies) got up the road, that seemed to change.
Suddenly, Jayco AlUla were pulling on the front in the finale, trying to limit the gap to Jegat, and becoming visibly frustrated when no one else wanted to up the pace in the peloton. Probably unsurprisingly.
In the end, Jegat finished six minutes ahead of the cruising peloton, enough to push him up the rankings in 10th, and force O'Connor out by less than two minutes. If Jayco could have limited the gap to four minutes, O'Connor could have remained in 10th.
In the grand scheme of things, the difference between 10th and 11th really shouldn't mean much to O'Connor, but on Saturday afternoon, there was definitely some frustration at not being able to hold onto a spot in the upper echelon of the results sheet after a rollercoaster Tour.
"After we tried to fight for the top 10, but I didn't really have much left," said Jayco AlUla's Mauro Schmid, who had a tough day of trying to get in the break and then crashing before having to work to defend a GC spot.
"We would have liked to keep the top 10, and we were fighting for it, but I think we can still be proud with the stage win of Ben, and today it wasn't meant to be."
Whilst it was disappointment for O'Connor and Jayco AlUla, it was celebrations for TotalEnergies and Jegat, for whom 10th is probably a much more significant achievement anyway.
Unlike Jayco, TotalEnergies did not win a stage at this Tour, and unlike O'Connor, Jegat is not a well-known name in the cycling world, so rubbing shoulders with the top 10, fairly unexpectedly, has been a special way to end this race.
"At its core, the initial objective was to win a stage. That was the plan," TotalEnergies DS Lylian Lebreton explained. "On Jordan’s wishes, as the race went on, we realised it was possible [to ride for GC]. It then became an objective: to do the best possible, whether that was 11th, 12th, 10th. His mentality pushed him to make the top 10. It’s super. It’s super for the team."
26-year-old Jegat has never won a race as a professional, and whilst he has finished in the top 10 on GC in minor stage races before, doing it at his home race, and the biggest race in the world, is almost certain to boost his standings as a rider.
Whilst 10th would have been a small win for O'Connor's pride, the same spot could be career-changing for Jegat.
"Now, our aim is to keep the Jordan Jegat that we know, and protect him a bit from the fervour around him," Lebreton said. "The real work that’s next for him is to concentrate on everything he does, motivate himself, but also to have fun doing it every day."
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