Well, Evenepoel and Lutsenko said “goodbye” to their colleagues. Four pursuers try to hunt the Belgian-Kazakh duo: Eenkhorn, Jensen, Rota and Schmid. No, there are no French.
I’m not going to write that Julian Alaphilippe has already lost his rainbow jersey but… Ah yes, I wrote it.
33 km: 6 seconds ahead for the leading duo
While we are two laps from the finish. The young Belgian took advantage of a false flat to give way to the rest of the leading group. Only the Kazakh Lutsenko followed.
And Bardet remains in his wheel. That’s good my Roman that.
38 km: Attack by Lutsenko in the leading group!
Less than 1 minute and 10 seconds behind for the peloton with all the favorites (minus Evenepoel, still in the lead).
It was time… The peloton took 30 seconds and was 1 minute 30 behind the leading riders.
Belgium and France are the nations most represented in the leading group (three riders each). With, we repeat, the incredible Remco which is once again giving its supposed leader van Aert a nightmare.
Always more than 2 minutes in advance for the leading group, well supplied. Three French are there with Bardet but also Pacher and Sivakov. Only, the work of the Habs also allowed Evenepoel to find himself in this group. And when you know the level of the boy…
In Innsbruck, the Auvergnat had been beaten in the sprint by Alejandro Valverde and had settled for silver.
54 km: The peloton is more than 2 minutes away
The Groupama-FDJ rider is in canes. But it is Evenepoel who makes the strongest impression.
Either a terrible summit of 119 m (no, I did not forget a number)! Just kidding, but it’s a 1.1 km climb at 14% average. The counter-attackers returned to the leading group. With Remco Evenepoel who follows his merry way and that could do very, very badly.
The Bigourdan plays patous by guiding his sheep. And meanwhile, the pursuers are only 15 seconds behind the leading group.
In this peloton, we find the reigning double world champion Julian Alaphilippe, Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogacar.
There are only 8 men in the lead, including Sivakov. Behind at 40 seconds, a group of counter-attackers including Bardet, Pascher, Sénéchal, Quintana, but especially the Evenepoel will-o’-the-wisp. The Belgian, recent winner of the Vuelta, is obviously determined to play his personal card like last year in Louvain.
The Dutchman was one of the outsiders, but he only ran about thirty kilometers, “morally destroyed”. Previously, Raymond Poulidor’s grandson had ended the night (Australian time) at the post, after a strange incident. Van der Poel allegedly had an altercation with two teenage girls aged 13 and 14 in his hotel, “one falling to the floor and the other being thrown against a wall, causing a small scratch on her elbow”, according to the police. The runner explained that he got angry because young people were making noise in the hallway of the establishment. He will appear in court on Tuesday. Nice, the journey to the antipodes…
Come on, we’re going to experience the last 77 km of the race together. We are (again) in Mount Pleasant, the main difficulty of the course that the runners will have done 12 times at the end of the race. In front, a breakaway of about fifteen riders who exploded on the climb. Half gave up but Frenchman Pavel Sivakov is in the leading group. The peloton of favorites is less than 2 minutes away.
9 p.m.: Yo cyclix! It had been a long time since we had delivered a bike, we were starting to miss it. And we are going to savor it, this road race of the World Road Cycling Championships, because the season is coming to an end and we will be very sad to have to wait until the end of the first quarter of 2023 to vibrate again. In short, the race. 260 terminals, 13 ascents, including a first of 7.5 km at 5.7%. The profile is clearly for punchers. Said like that, we would be almost confident for Julian Alaphilippe, double reigning world champion, but the Frenchman is in bad luck this year and is not really in top form. But we also know he is capable of sublimating himself on D-Day, so maybe? Opposite, the competition will be stronger than ever: Belgium shows up with its two leaders, favorites, provided that their rivalry does not derail everything. Of course, let’s not forget Tadej Pogacar, who no doubt wants to redeem himself after the loss of the Tour de France. >> See you at sunrise for the start of the live