Tourreporter
The Spaniard Ion Izagirre wins the 12th stage of the Tour de France in Belleville-en-Beaujolais in a solo. But the hardest fight is the jump into the breakaway group.
Ion Izagirre had time to settle in for the finish. His lead at the kilometer mark in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, the destination of the 12th stage of the Tour de France, was around one minute. Shortly afterwards he clenched his fist for the first time. This was followed by air kisses, four fingers stretched upwards and at the end the outstretched arms when crossing the finish line.
120 riders with the same goal
The four fingers were for his daughter, Izagirre reported. She celebrated her fourth birthday that day when her father won the second tour stage of his career. “As professional cyclists, we travel a lot and miss important moments with the family,” said the Basque, “so I tried to show her that I’m with her.”
If little Maddi Izagirre actually realized what her father was doing for her at home, she could count herself lucky. Because apart from the 34-year-old professional cyclist from Team Cofidis, many riders started in Roanne in the morning with the intention of competing for victory on this stage.
Appreciation arrow right 12th stage arrow right
“There were definitely 120 riders in the group today,” suspected Izagirre’s teammate Simon Geschke: “If the neutralization is almost like a mass sprint to be in the front row, then you know what kind of day it will be.” It was a fast-paced day that took around an hour and a half for the race to settle down in the classic sense: a breakaway in front and behind them the field with overall leader Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey.
The chances are getting smaller
The moment tour director Christian Prudhomme released the race with his yellow flag, the attacks began, in which groups formed and did not go away, new constellations emerged, while the sprinters at the back lost the connection and the peloton eventually split into two parts broke. At some point he “completely lost track”, admitted Geschke and was probably not alone.
The tour is now more than half of the stages behind it. The teams’ chances of returning home from France with a win are dwindling with each passing day. The sprints have so far been dominated by Jasper Philipsen from the Alpecin-Deceuninck team, the fight for the yellow jersey has long since turned into a duel between Vinegaard and the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, which will probably also be decided over stage wins in the high mountains in the coming days.
For all other teams and those riders who are neither sprinters nor climbers, this means they have to occupy the breakaways on days when the overall classification is not at stake and a bunch sprint is not expected. Sport directors whose teams are not represented at the front ask their drivers to follow. And the teams with a classification driver in their ranks must also be careful not to overlook anyone who can inadvertently make up time because they were allowed to go into the group.
Van Aert tries, van der Poel succeeds
There are also tactical reasons why one of the top teams wants to be represented at the front. “It was our plan to have a driver at the front of the group, as a satellite in case something happens. But he can also go for his own result,” explained Vingegaard in Belleville-en-Beaujolias.
With his team Jumbo-Visma, this is usually the job of Wout van Aert, who as a classic driver on terrain like Thursday can not only act as a relay station for his captain, but also has chances to win. Van Aert then tried several times at the beginning of the stage, but in the end it was Tiesj Benoot who represented the colors of Jumbo-Visma and finished fourth.
Van Aert’s alter ego on the bike, Mathieu van der Poel, also managed to get into the group. Van der Poel had been ill in the past few days, but still dared to try to start as a soloist with 50 kilometers to go – a kind of “signature move” for the Dutchman. Vain. “My body didn’t want what I wanted,” said van der Poel in a clearly hoarse voice.
So this time it was Izagirre who made the decisive attack for his solo with 30 kilometers to go. After that, it was just a matter of putting your head down and pedaling. “I’ve been trying to get into the group the whole tour. Today it was finally time,” said Izagirre, who was lucky enough to have the hopes of so many other riders in the morning.