Tour de France: De Gendt wins in Saint Etienne

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) claimed a victory that will rank at the very top of his list of breakaway triumphs on stage 8 of the Tour de France, as a breathless finale in the Massif Central saw Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) reclaim the yellow jersey and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) gain time on his rivals for the overall title. 

De Gendt, a rare example of a pure breakaway specialist, was part of a four-man escape on a 200km parcours that totalled 3,800 metres of elevation gain across seven categorised climbs.

The Belgian dropped the last of his companions, Alessandro De Marchi (CCC Team), on the final climb of the Côte de la Jaillère and somehow held off Alaphilippe and Pinot on the 12km run-in to Saint-Etienne.

Alaphilippe, who lost the yellow jersey to Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) on La Planche des Belles Filles two days ago, needed to find six seconds, and sprang ferociously clear of the reduced bunch 300 metres from top of the short-but-steep Jaillère. By cresting the designated 'Bonus Point' in second place, he grabbed five bonus seconds. Pinot produced a huge acceleration to follow the attack – collecting two bonus seconds of his own – and the two Frenchman combined on the run-in to finish 20 seconds ahead of the rest. 

Pinot took second place on the stage – perhaps in a gentleman’s agreement with the faster Alaphilippe – to collect a further six bonus seconds. His offensive was a risk, but in the end it was handsomely rewarded with a haul of 28 seconds over his rivals, taking him to third overall and the best-placed of the pre-race favourites.

Pinot has 19 seconds in hand over fifth-placed Geraint Thomas, who produced a remarkable ride to come back from a Team Ineos pile-up on the run down to the final climb. Having hit the deck when Michael Woods (EF) slipped out on a right-hand bend, the 2018 champion managed to haul himself back on the climb but was still half-way down the group when Alaphilippe lit the fuse. He could count himself lucky it was not worse, both in terms of time loss and injury, but he’ll feel the bullet he fired to scramble back could have been used to match Pinot, who he now sees as his main rival.

Alaphilippe might have won the stage, were it not for De Gendt’s powers of resistance, but there will be no sense of disappointment as he accomplished the mission to recover the maillot jaune, which he’ll wear on Bastille Day.

Ciccone put on a brave face but his disappointment was apparent. The 24-year-old Italian found himself in a slightly disorganised chasing pack with the GC contenders and not many of their teammates, and was forced to do turns himself to try and limit the damage. He slips to second overall at 23 seconds, and if there's any consolation it's that he'll now wear the white jersey as best young rider. 

Another development in the overall picture was that Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) was dropped on the final climb and lost four minutes, definitively settling his debate over whether to go for GC or stage wins.

De Gendt does it again

Alaphilippe and Pinot will dominate the headlines in France when tomorrow’s newspapers come out on Bastille Day, but De Gendt deserves just as much praise. He has now won 15 races in his career, all from breakaways. This was his fourth Grand Tour stage and his second at the Tour after winning on Mont Ventoux three years ago.

More riders were expected to join the cause on what seemed like fertile terrain, and when the four of them - Niki Terpstra (Total Direct Energie) and Ben King (Dimension Data) were the other two – were kept on a relatively short leash of four to five minutes, it looked like it could be a futile effort.

Yet De Gendt and De Marchi upped the pace when the terrain was at its most rugged in the final 70km. They dropped Terpstra and King on the Col de la Croix de Part and pressed on over the subsequent Cote d’Aveize, the final two of the five category-2 climbs. There was another uncategorised climb followed by a downhill run to the final climb and, aided by a tailwind, they managed to hold off a bunch that was being driven by two committed parties in EF Education First and Astana.

Having crested the Aveize (52km to go) with a lead of 3:35, they reached the foot of the final climb (14km to go) with a lead of one minute and a fighting chance.

De Gendt immediately dropped De Marchi on the eight per cent gradients and led solo over the top, but saw his lead slashed to 30 seconds when Alaphilippe and Pinot sprang from the bunch. The two Frenchman were all-in and far fresher, but somehow he kept them at bay.

The run to Saint-Etienne was net downhill but contained several flat and even uphill sections, so there was plenty of work to do. The time gap oscillated wildly, but he took a lead of 12 seconds into the home straight, and with it a moment to celebrate as he crossed the line. He covered his mouth with his hands in disbelief, before punching the air.

“I had a really good feeling all day so I believed in it all day, but we only got five minutes and it went down really quick to three and a half,” said De Gendt.

“We didn't go really easy but we didn't push that hard on the climb where the feed zone was. Just after that we went full because we heard those who were pulling before started to drop, so that was a moment to try and get a bigger gap again. Then we had four minutes and I really started to believe in it again. But then we almost crashed in a few corners because we were taking some risks. From 70 to go I started believing in a possible victory. But still it hurts - it hurt so much.”

How it unfolded

Stage 8 offered the riders seven climbs with nearly 4,000 meters of elevation over the 200km from Macon to Saint-Etienne. The climbs were all category 2 or 3 and the stage strongly resembled a Belgian Classic. The day's break group turned out to be a surprisingly small one. To no one's surprise, the first to go right from the drop of the flag was Thomas De Gendt (Soudal-Lotto). He was joined by Niki Terpstra (Total-Direct Energie) and Ben King (Dimension Data).

Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Katusha) jumped to get into the group. After dangling between the field and the leaders for a while, he nearly joined the leaders but then unexpectedly dropped back. The next to give it a shot, more successfully, was CCC's Alessandro De Marchi. The peloton declared itself satisfied with this group and let the quartet go.

The leaders rolled through the early intermediate sprint, but the peloton got hectic. Bahrain-Merida and Deceuninck-QuickStep did their all to set up Sonny Colbrelli and Elia Viviani, respectively. The latter was the first of the peloton at the line, followed by Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Sunweb's Michael Matthews.

After 45km, the gap had grown to five minutes. Bora-Hansgrohe's Marcus Burghardt and Sunweb's Chad Haga were sent to the head of the field, where they could be seen for many kilometers. A routine quickly developed on the many climbs: De Gendt took the points ahead of King. In the peloton, the sprinters routinely dropped on the ascents, splits in the field appeared on the descents, and everyone came back together on the flats.

The day's longest climb, the 8.5km category-3 Côte d'Affoux, came almost midway through, by which point the gap had dropped to almost exactly three minutes. It grew back to 3:30 as the lead group hit the top of the Croix de Part, but by then there were just two out front. Terpstra was the first to drop back on the climb, which had a gradient of up to 7.9 per cent, and King soon fell away, too

With the group again nearing the four minute mark, Sunweb, Ineos and Astana really pushed the tempo on the climb. On the descent, in a frightening moment, De Marchi overcooked a bend. He was lucky enough not to crash but had to stop and then scurry to catch up again with De Gendt. By the time they were reunited, they had nearly a minute on Terpstra and King and four minutes on the field, with less than 60km remaining.

On the ascent of the penultimate climb, the Côte d'Aveize, Astana upped the speed yet again, with the result that even more riders were dropped, including stage 6 winner Dylan Teuns, with Peter Sagan struggling to hang on. The peloton was only about 60-70 riders strong and with 47km left the gap was down again to 3:30. 

EF Education First moved up to help Astana and the combined efforts brought the gap down on the rolling terrain. Sagan was rocking and rolling on the climbs but just about hung in, while Wout Van Aert had to shut a gap for Jumbo-Visma leader Steven Kruijswijk. The high pace put on by EF and Astana served to drop a number of helpers of their rivals for GC and the gap continued to drop, sitting at just over a minute ahead of the final climb. 

With 15km to go, disaster nearly struck Team Ineos as Geraint Thomas was involved in a crash with teammates Michal Kwiatkowski and Gianni Moscon when EF Education First's Michael Woods slipped out on a right-hand bend going downhill. The defending champion made it back to the bunch after a few kilometres thanks to the work of Wout Poels, shutting the final gaps himself on the climb but not soon enough to respond to Alaphilippe's attack. 

Up ahead, De Marchi was instantly distanced on the final climb. De Gendt powered on but lost 20 seconds in the blink of an eye when Alaphilippe and Pinot set off. With 12km to go from the top, a big effort was needed, and the Frenchmen combined seamlessly. They also needed hesitation behind, and they got it. Bauke Mollema drove things on for Ciccone, and Sunweb still believed in the stage win, while Astana had Alexey Lutsenko. It wasn't a bad chase, but it wasn't a strong one either. There were moments when someone finished their turn and no one immediately picked it up. Alaphilippe and Pinot never got more than 20 seconds, and it came down to 10 seconds at one point, but the moments of hesitation swung it. Michael Matthews (Sunweb) and Sagan led the heavily reduced bunch across the line 20 seconds behind Alaphilippe and Pinot. 

So much was going on behind that the cameras almost forgot about De Gendt, who somehow had enough in the tank to finish the job.

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