In a tumultuous day for the general classification, Remco Evenepoel won stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday, sprinting clear from a trio of the world’s best, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider taking the win at Plateau de Solaison.
In what was the Belgian’s first road win at the Tour, he out-sprinted overall race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), beating him into second place, with the Slovenian’s teammate, Isaac del Toro, third, a handful of seconds behind.
The group had formed at the bottom of the final climb, Pogačar upping the pace and dropping everyone else. With the yellow jersey leading all the way, the trio swept up what remained of the day’s breakaway, the final rider caught around 5km from the line.
Pogačar kept the pressure on leading into the final kilometre, before Del Toro attacked with 900m to go. The Mexican champion was unable to drop Evenepoel, though, and a second move with 400m to go had the same result.
Evenepoel then held off Pogačar to take a third Tour de France stage win and move into second place overall.
The race was shaken by the abandon of Jonas Vingegaard, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider injured in a crash around 20km from the finish. Vingegaard had started the day second on GC, and his absence contributed to a raft of changes at the top of the standings.
Though he was unable to take the stage, Del Toro moved into third place overall, and while many of the top 10 riders are in similar places to those they started the day with, the gap between second place and 10th has grown from under four minutes to 14.
For Evenepoel, the win was a huge one; not only was it his first road stage win at the Tour, it was confirmation of the talent many have thought he had, but had sometimes doubted.
“It’s amazing, I’m literally trembling from emotion,” he said. “It’s been a hell of a day, a pretty hard start, I was actually feeling really bad in the beginning. I really got better and better during the day.
“You have to understand I’m racing with the best guy ever,” he said of Pogačar. “He has been doing a hell of a climb to try to win the stage with Isaac, and for me it’s a big step forward that I can follow this pace, I always get so many critics about 'he cannot stand steep climbs, this and that', and it feels amazing, just towards myself, everybody around me, it means a lot.
“I was not really expecting any attacks from Isaac anymore, but he went on the last steep part, it was a pretty hard attack, and then he went again 400 to go, which was for me the perfect way to make a sprint. Then I tried to keep my momentum, tried to go as hard as possible to the finish line.
“I’ve been doing efforts on this climb maybe 20 times when I was here on training camp in Combloux, it’s amazing to get this victory and to go into the rest day with this feeling.”
As world time trial champion, Evenepoel will start Tuesday’s 26.1km time trial as a favourite, adding: “Now we have good rest day and then a beautiful day on Tuesday when I will try and go again for a stage.”
An emotional Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) reacts seconds after winning stage 15 (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
The final stage before the second rest day saw the race move from the Vosges Mountains to the Jura, starting in Champagnole and heading south, by-passing Geneva, before heading into the Alps for a finish at Plateau de Solaison.
Another tough day in the mountains, the stage covered four classified climbs, with the finish at the top of an hors catégorie ascent, making for a total of 3,900m of vertical ascent.
As on Saturday, the day’s intermediate sprint came early, after just 17.3km, but unlike stage 14 it was an uphill sprint, this though made no difference to Jasper Philipsen, who once again repaid the work of his Alpecin-Premier Tech team by taking maximum points, further eroding Mads Pedersen’s lead in the points classification, though the Lidl-Trek rider was second across the line.
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Spectators ring bells along the roadside as the pack of riders races by on stage 15 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Attacks started immediately after the sprint, with former polka-dot jersey winner, Warren Barguil (Picnic-PostNL) the first to move. His team were clearly keen to get up the road, with teammate and fellow old-stager, John Degenkolb also trying his luck, but the fight continued over the Côte des Rousses and beyond the ensuing descent.
Though Xabier Azparren (Pinarello-Q36.5) and Thymen Arensman (Netcompany-Ineos) got a gap, the chase persisted, with EF Education-EasyPost particularly active. Every time this pressure brought the leaders back and the fight would start again.
Finally, half way through the stage, on one of the unclassified climbs before the first category Cole de la Croissette, a group of 23 managed to get away. This included Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Adam Yates, Bruno Amirail and Victor Campenaerts (both Visma-Lease a Bike), as well as Egan Bernal and Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany-Ineos). The EF Education-EasyPost pair of Ben Healey and Alex Baudin along with stage 13 winner Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) also made it into the move.
Also present was Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5), who began the day in ninth place overall, and with the peloton not wanting to repeat the mistake of Friday’s stage 13 they set to work holding him fairly close, UAE and Visma allowing a lead of around 2.20.
Kevin Vauquelin (netcompany-Ineos) and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) made it into the early 23-rider breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
However, as the leaders reached the Col de la Croissette, and with Pidcock’s teammate Brent van Moer on the front, that gap increased and, as he did on Friday, the British rider moved into virtual fourth place on GC, displacing Paul Seixas (Decathlon-GMA CGM).
The Croissette is a beast though, averaging 11% over its 4.6km, and no sooner did they hit the lower slopes than the group began to fall apart, US champion Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) attacking and leading Pidcock, Yates, Einer Rubio (Movistar) and Yannis Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling) over the top.
Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United) and Schmid both rejoined the leading group on the Côte du Mont, the latter attacking on the descent and building a slender advantage. But, with Visma-Lease a Bike boosted by Campenaerts and Amirail, the peloton began to bring the gap down ahead of the final climb.
Visma-Lease a Bike were chasing, working on pre-race stategy until Vingegaard crashed out (Image credit: Getty Images)
However, with 20km too go the shape of the entire race changed, Vingegaard crashing out of the race, causing some hesitation in the chase, until Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe took up the pursuit to limit Pidcock’s advantage. Even then the breakaway hit the climb with their lead still over two minutes.
The Plateau de Solaison is another brutal climb, averaging 9% over its 11.3km, and with even steeper ramps to challenge the riders, the leading group feel apart once again, Simmons making a move, with Pidcock, Yates and Voisard chasing behind.
With a gap of 22 seconds established, Simmons held his place off the front, though he reckoned without Pogačar. The yellow jersey upped the pace the moment he hit the climb and very soon only Del Toro and Evenepoel were left in his wheel. With 6km to go Simmons’ realised his effort was in vain, Pogačar having closed to within 40 seconds, and the American was caught shortly afterwards.
Tadej Pogačar leads Remco Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro on Plateau de Solaison (Image credit: Getty Images)
Owen Rogers is an experienced journalist, covering the sport for various magazines and websites for more than 10 years.
Initially concentrating mainly on the women's sport, he has covered hundreds of race days on the ground and interviewed some of the sport's biggest names.
Living near Cambridge in the UK, when he's not working you'll find him either riding his bike or playing drums.
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