Tour de France: Alexey Lutsenko wins stage 6 on summit of Mont Aigoual

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Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Pro Team) won stage 6 of the Tour de France at Mont Aigoual after he forged clear from the day’s early break on the category 1 ascent of the Col de la Lusette, but the tough finale was not enough to encourage any aggression from the overall favourites, who were content to finish together in the Cévennes.

Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) retains the yellow jersey, 3 seconds clear of Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and 7 ahead of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) after a stage that saw Ineos Grenadiers set the tempo on the final climb, albeit without placing any of their rivals in undue difficulty. The adventurous 2020 route has yet to encourage much invention from the top tier of overall contenders, though the Tour is still young and there are tougher days to come, starting this weekend in the Pyrenees.

The attacking was instead concentrated at the head of the race, where Lutsenko punched his way clear of the day’s early break on the Col de la Lusette with 17km remaining. Together with Neilson Powless (EF Pro Cycling), the Kazakhstani had emerged as the strongman of the move at the base of the stiff climb and he dropped the American as the gradient stiffened further with 4km to go.

Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) caught and passed Powless as he set off in pursuit of Lutsenko, but the Spaniard’s chase was a forlorn one. He trailed the former under-23 world champion by half a minute at the summit and the gap stretched out to 55 seconds on the 13km-long false flat that led to the finish line at Mont Aigoual. Powless had Greg Van Avermaet (CCC) for company on the plateau towards the line, with the Olympic champion out-kicking him for third place on the stage, 2:15 down on Lutsenko.

“It was a stage we targeted, and I’m delighted it came to fruition and the hard work paid off today,” said Lutsenko, who credited the advice of his fellow countryman and team manager Alexandre Vinokourov.

“Today on the bus we spoke about this stage, we knew it was one we could target. I’d lost enough time to be allowed into the breakaway, then we got to the climb and I climbed at my rhythm. Alexandre Vinokourov had told me about the 2km section which would be the hardest part, and I gave my maximum there. When I heard Herrada was at 25 seconds, I was a little worried, but I knew if I gave my all without going into the red that I could win.”

The yellow jersey group came in just under 3 minutes down on Lutsenko, with Alaphilippe clipping away on the final ramps to take fifth on the stage and claw back one second on the maillot jaune, but, all told, it was a day of relative calm for the pre-race favourites.

It was notable that Ineos took a controlling interest at the head of the peloton as the terrain grew more rugged in the Cévennes, leading on the Col des Mourèzes and the Col de la Lusette, but their rhythm was brisk rather than overwhelming. None of the overall contenders appeared in undue distress and it was telling, too, that the three-minute deficit to the front of the race barely changed in the final 30km or so. Jumbo-Visma appeared content to cede the front of the bunch to Ineos for the finale.

“We thought that was fine," Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) told NOS. “We have to show ourselves on the right days. Today other teams were able to do the work. That was perfect.”

How it unfolded

With Deceuninck-QuickStep no longer in the maillot jaune and with Mitchelton-Scott rather more lukewarm about defending it, the odds were altogether more amenable to would-be escapees on stage 5 than they had been on Wednesday, where a downhill parcours and block headwind contributed to a rare day without a single breakaway.

“I knew it was a day where the break could go the distance,” said Nicolas Roche (Sunweb), who triggered the winning move shortly after the race left La Teil. The Irishman – who was rewarded for his efforts with the day’s Prix de la Combativité – was joined by a willing coalition of the strong and the canny, as Rémi Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Van Avermaet, Herrada, Powless, Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT), Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Lutsenko (Astana) came with him.

Once they had been handed their bon de sortie by the peloton, that octet got down to the task in hand. Within 40km, they had a lead of five minutes over the bunch and Van Avermaet was the virtual overall leader. After 80km, that advantage reached it maximum extent of 6:30 on a peloton where Mitchelton-Scott were content to allow the escapees a loose leash.

The gap had tightened slightly by the intermediate sprint in Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, where Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) added a little padding to his points classification lead over Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), but the break’s freedom of movement became considerably more restricted once the road began to climb in the Cévennes.

Jumbo-Visma’s brief show of forcing on the category 3 Cap de Coste shed the bunch of the sprinters, before Ineos took up the mantle on the following Col des Mourèzes with a little under 40km remaining. They continued to set the tempo on the Col de la Lusette, a climb Alberto Contador had enthusiastically described as presenting “opportunities” for the men with eyes on overall victory.

Instead, they were largely content to follow in Ineos’ slipstream, particularly as the time bonuses atop the climb had already been snared by the escapees. The only attack from the peloton came from Fabio Aru, but the Italian’s effort petered out over the top and didn’t serve as a springboard for his leader Tadej Pogačar. Indeed, the only frisson for a GC contender came when Pogačar suffered a mechanical problem on the false flat towards the finish, but the Slovenian quickly returned to the sanctuary of the yellow jersey group.

“All the bonuses were already taken, so there wasn’t much to gain for anyone, then also the final climb wasn’t super steep, and it takes a lot of effort to get a few seconds,” Yates said. “Everyone was saving their energy and keeping it for a later day.”