Rinse and repeat. For the second time in week two of the Tour de France, Remco Evenepoel suffered on the final ascent of the day, only to then regain enough ground to remain firmly in the battle for a top three finish in Paris.
At Le Lioran on stage 10 in the Massif Central, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider had managed to make such a strong comeback after struggling on a third category climb he could even gap his rivals - and that certainly wasn't the case four days later in the Vosges this Saturday.
But even so, having lost time on the Col du Haag when Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) laid down a ferociously aggressive pace on the first half of the climb, on the second part and above all on the six flatter kilometres across a high plateau to the finish, Evenepoel steadied the ship in impressive style once again.
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By the line, Evenepoel's fifth place at 48 seconds on the lone stage winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was just four seconds shy of Vingegaard, and he remains in third place overall, at 5:04 on the yellow jersey.
Third-placed Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) has closed the gap on Evenepoel to just 15 seconds on GC, and that will certainly be a concern for the Belgian star going forward should he want to repeat his 2024 GC podium finish in Nice.
Yet at the same time, the consistent pace maintained by Evenepoel on the climb has proved just how well he can limit the damage, and will give him fresh reasons to hope for a strong performance in the Alps, too.
"I suffered quite a bit from the rain today. I was cold,” Evenepoel said in a statement reported by Nieuwsblad.
“On the final climb, I did my own thing. It was going a bit too fast for me for a moment. But after that, my pacing was still good and I didn't lose much time. I felt like I rode a pretty strong last section,”- and that was despite being briefly blocked, he said, by in-race vehicles.
It wasn't just Evenepoel's bridging back to rivals that felt like a repeat of Le Lioran, either. The strong levels of cooperation that he and teammate Florian Lipowitz had shown at Le Lioran, with the German visibly sitting up when Evenepoel was dropped on the Cat. 3 were visible once again.
“When I caught up with Lipo', I shouted to work together as hard as possible until the finish line" the Belgian said. "In the end, we managed to limit the damage well, especially considering the severe weather conditions.”
Evenepoel also seemed more optimistic about his chance for the stage on Sunday; he said, with an equally hard final ascent to Plateau de Salaison preceded by less difficult climbs than in the Vosges.
The more constant effort than that needed for a wildly irregular ascent like the Col du Haag was also likely to benefit him, he told Nieuwsblad, and beyond that, Tuesday's time trial represented his best opportunity to regain ground on his rivals in an increasingly intense podium battle.
"I’ve already tackled that climb a few times during training camps. It will be a matter of giving it my all once again, to make up as much time as possible in the time trial on Tuesday and, of course, win the stage. After that, it will be day by day.”
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