Arnaud De Lie has suffered another dose of hardship and Grand Tour misery, abandoning the Tour de France towards the end of a day of suffering on a brutal stage 3.
The Belgian, who had to abandon May’s Giro d’Italia after just three stages due to illness, has suffered a very similar fate at this Tour de France. He was forced to miss Thursday’s teams presentation due to a stomach infection, struggled to train ahead of the race and has suffered badly since the race began on Saturday.
After playing no real role in the opening team time trial, De Lie finished dead last on stage 2, but Monday’s stage 3 was when he started to flirt with an exit from the race.
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Dropped early amid a furiously-paced start as a breakaway struggled to form, De Lie quickly found himself several minutes behind, and continued to bleed time all along a route headed into the medium mountains under a blazing Pyrenean sun.
As the gap rose above the half-hour mark with 40km to go, the prospect of missing the time cut began to come into focus.
However, despite battling on for most of the day, De Lie never reached the finish. As we waited for news of whether he would cross the line in time, it was reported that he had abandoned, deep into the stage.
"It's obviously a huge disappointment. I had worked for months to be ready for this Tour de France and I was dreaming of fighting for the sprint finishes. Unfortunately, this stomach infection weakened me a lot," De Lie said.
"I gave everything I had over the first two stages, but today I simply didn't have the legs to continue, especially in such extreme heat."
It has been a trying season for De Lie, who commented that he'd "soon be a Buddhist monk," such was the avalanche of misfortune he has had to process. He made that comment at the Tour de Wallonie in early June, and while he did manage to win a stage of that race, in the end, he is back in suffer mode as another Grand Tour has gone off the rails.
A late decision to stop
De Lie's struggles began early on the stage and they only intensified as both the climbing and the temperatures ramped up in the second half of the 195km trek across Catalunya and into France.
There were initial fears that he would abandon early, as he found himself several minutes behind even the gruppetto, only accompanied by a few teammates.
However, he plugged away for the next few hours, but then the risk of being eliminated on time came into view. In the end, the time cut was set at 48 minutes and 29 seconds behind the winner, Tadej Pogačar. At that point De Lie was still in the race, although he had by then waved his teammates to go on without him and had long since been battling alone.
Having been clocked at over 40 minutes down with the peloton around 10km from the finish, the situation was on a knife-edge. However, he and his team took the decision into their own hands, and De Lie, despite battling all day, stepped off his bike just ahead of the day's final climb, mere kilometres from the finish.
"After being dropped, De Lie did everything he could to stay in the race, supported for many kilometres by teammate Baptiste Veistroffer, " the team said in a press release.
"The three Pyrenean climbs in the final part of the stage, combined with the extreme heat, made the challenge even tougher.
"To protect his health, the Belgian eventually stepped off his bike on the final climb of the day.
"Despite making steady progress in his recovery, the demands of today's stage, raced in scorching temperatures approaching 40°C, ultimately proved too much."
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