Our half-Gersois little heart bleeds when drawing up this observation. But we have to do it: this 4th stage of the Tour de France 2023, part of Dax in the Landes to arrive on the racing circuit of Nogaro, in our heart department, was an absolute purge. Peloton without envy, sloppy sprint and marked by falls, including that of one of the favorites, Fabio Jakobsen…
“The runners had decided not to race, and it was seen”, dropped the journalist Alexandre Brasseur, on a set of France 2 where we handled irony without trying to hide his spite, after having broadcast for almost five hours an ersatz of cycling. These 181.8 km almost flat, on the eve of attacking the Pyrenees, did not already feel the legend this Tuesday morning, before the start.
From there to imagine such a pensum, completed half an hour behind the most pessimistic schedule… However, after a start worthy of a cycling event in Chalosse (36.2 km/h on average during the 20 first kilometers, against 51.7 km/h during the last 20), Adrien Petit had warned the viewer, speaking directly to a cameraman on a public service motorcycle: “Just put on a helicopter background and people will be cushy for a siesta,” laughed the Bison from Arras.
An air of Gap-Privas 2020, in worse
A very long nap later, Jasper Philipsen savored his second victory in two days and his green jersey stolen from Victor Lafay. This did not prevent the Belgian from Alpecin-Deceuninck from acknowledging that he had won “probably the most boring stage of the Tour de France for a long time”.
In 2020, the 183 kilometers between Gap and Privas had also put all the followers to sleep. But at least the sprint, won by Wout van Aert, had been clean. And an unexpected episode had finally relegated the scenario of the stage to the background, since Julian Alaphilippe had lost the overall lead due to a 20-second penalty for an unauthorized pit stop, in favor of Adam Yates.
“No one wanted to go on a breakaway” … except two riders
As History loves winks, the Englishman, twin of Simon, is also the yellow jersey of this Tour 2023, after four stages. And in three sentences on France 2, Tadej Pogacar’s teammate at UAE summed up this Tuesday’s Gascon pastis. “Today was pretty easy until the end. No one wanted to break away, the sprinters were very happy to stay in the peloton. The end, with the falls, it was a little difficult. »
So if Adam, there was a breakaway, part just after the intermediate sprint of Notre-Dame-des-Cyclistes, 88 km from the finish. But in about sixty terminals, the French Anthony Delaporte and Benoît Cosnefroy have never counted more than a minute and 30 seconds ahead of the peloton. Like Petit a little earlier, Cosnefroy also spoke to a motorcycle from France Télé, during this hopeless Norman raid. “If you want us to do the post-race analysis now, we can do it, it will save me the press area, smiled the Cherbourgeois of AG2R-Citröen. Why did we do this? I don’t know. »
Thank you guys anyway for this little fantasy between friends in the heart of a day that was sorely lacking. Cold, the combative of the day returned to this epic full of panache in the land of the musketeers. “We embarked on a two-man breakaway which had no more interest than that but it was a good time with ‘Antho'”. His friend from Arkéa-Samsic, originally from the Channel, relayed him: “I think that the breakaways are part of the history of the Tour. Even in stages, let’s say, uninteresting, like today. »
The concern is that these peloton outings seem to be written in the past, in an event with enormous financial stakes where the adventurers, as magnificent as empty-handed most of the time, are increasingly neglected in favor of the sprinters, these ruthless snipers.
Van der Poel angry
It is still necessary that the said sprint takes place in good conditions, not like this Tuesday, on a Paul-Armagnac circuit which is nevertheless very wide. “It was super dangerous, in my opinion more dangerous than yesterday [lundi, à Bayonne] “, cursed Mathieu van der Poel, that the victory of his colleague Philipsen did not prevent from expressing his anger.
“We knew from the start that the final here would be eventful. If there had been so many corners for a sprint finish in town, there would have been criticism. There, as it is on a circuit, everything is permitted. In addition to Jakobsen, Frenchman Alex Zingle, Spaniard Luis Leon Sanchez, Norwegian Torstein Traeen, Slovenian Luka Mezgec and Italian Jacopo Guarnieri, in particular, fell in the final. The latter two were evacuated to the hospital, with a probable broken collarbone. They will be the only ones, in a few days, to remember this sad stage.