He had already stunned us the day before, when he had been the only one with the pacemaker still in the green to follow the two mutants of the peloton in the worst percentages of the Pike hill, but then the blow of the kilometer in the streets of Saint -Sébastien, we bow down definitively. Victor Lafay is the man at the start of the Tour de France, considering that Pogacar and Vingegaard belong to another species. And he is French, which does not spoil anything in addition to reassuring souls a little. Last year, it was not until the 19th stage to see Laporte raise his arms, and the lack of results quickly becomes an unbearable burden on the frail tricolor shoulders after a week of peeling potatoes in the stockings. -funds of the platoon.
In short, that’s settled, and how. We counted the dead, including Pinot and Alaphilippe, dropped at almost three minutes on the maous acceleration of the UAE in the last ramps of the Jaizkibel, and the way Van Aert was going to scatter everyone in a sprint, when Lafay emerged from nowhere leaves under the red flame. The big world was looking at each other on the right, Pogacar and Vingegaard in the lead? The 27-year-old Cofidis climber-puncher, winner of a stage on the Giro in 2021, chose to send a rocket on the left side near the barriers, top speed measured at 61.2 km / h.
Disgusted Van Aert
Poor Van Aert, who was chasing everything that moved from the end of the descent to make sure he got there in a cab, hesitated for a second, as if thinking “who is this fucking Cofidis? », and that was enough for Lafay to take 50 meters. 50 meters which will only be 2 or 3 on the finish line, in a kind of remake of Benjamin Thomas’ distance duel with the peloton last year on a similar straight line, but with a happier ending for Cofidis , who was awaiting his first victory since Sylvain Chavanel in 2008, another millennium.
“It is amply deserved for the whole team, we have been working for years on the composition of a group capable of winning on the Tour, rejoiced its sports director Cédric Vasseur at the microphone of RMC. We had already felt yesterday that Victor had fantastic legs, today he was breathtaking, he had an appointment with his destiny. He boldly seized his chance. In the end, it’s deliverance. That he takes advantage of this great moment, very few runners are able to do it”.
“It’s a sick thing! »
The hero of the day, we come back to it, dazed by his prowess at the microphone of France TV: “Saturday, I was disappointed with how I had run. For once I ran with my head, I said to myself, make or break it, but I saw that the Jumbos had been driven a lot. For a moment it settled down, I went all the way to the left, and that’s it. When I made my effort, I didn’t even think about winning, then I saw that I had taken a little lead, I recovered a tooth I believed in it until the end. Yesterday I was a little frustrated at the finish, there I took advantage of the marking. It’s a sick thing. I’ve been here for five years, I’m super happy to free the team from this burden.
To tell you how unaccustomed the buddies are, they almost learned of Lafay’s victory from the journalists of France TV, when they finished cushy several minutes behind the leading group. Asked by a colleague about the “sacred number” of his boyfriend, Alex Perez laughs: “Yeah, I did not see, you know? I was on the bike. Two kilometers from the finish, the guys ask me who won, I say “yeah, it’s Victor!”. They tell me “noooo?”. I say “but no, I’m kidding!”. And on the line I see it’s him, I say “damn the con!” “.
Axel Zingle was also on his ass: “I saw him on the podium crossing the line, I said to myself “what has he done to us again?”. I saw that he had a medal around his neck, I said to myself “no, still not?”. He must have the combative or something like that, but it was explained to me that he had won, I went to see him directly. Each time we say to ourselves “it’s not ideal for him, he would have to arrive in a bump”, but in the end he is doing quite well”. We would not like to be the hotel staff who should sleep the staff of the northern team on Sunday evening in San Sebastián. But a victory 15 years later is well worth a Patxaran binge.