“For me Paris-Nice really starts tomorrow with Mont Brouilly.” David Gaudu announced the color on Tuesday, after a team time trial which saw his Groupama-FDJ finish more than a minute behind the winner, UAE Team Emirates. But his ambitions for the general classification finally took flight in Beaujolais. And this is even before the second pass in this highly anticipated climb, 3km long at an average of 7.7%.
And for good reason: a little less than 23km from the finish, the Breton fell alone, like a grown-up, in the Col du Fût d’Avenas, trying to… take off his jacket. A mistake, a real one. The 27-year-old runner tried, for a while, to hang on alongside his teammate Quentin Pacher. But he quickly gave up, finally falling 6’06” behind the winner Santiago Buitrago at the finish. Heavy but logical consequence, for a big blunder.
Absurd: David Gaudu falls… while taking off his jacket
All the leaders had already taken off their overcoats
“I was surprised at the foot of the penultimate climb. Everyone, all the leaders had already taken off their jacketsreacted Jacky Durand in the Kings of the Pedal, after having already pointed it out live, before the fall. He had Quentin Pacher by his side. It’s up to Quentin to collect his jacket, possibly at the foot of the climb. But we don’t do it in the highest percentages.”
Gaudu was in fact engaged in a 14% portion when he made the mistake. In the middle of a bend, on a narrow road. “It is a mistakeinsisted our consultant. So afterwards, no luck, his sleeve hits his elbow and he falls. But for me, the Breton made a mistake by wanting to take off his jacket two or three kilometers from the summit (less than a kilometer, editor’s note) when everyone was ready to go to war.
A decision all the more surprising given that the Frenchman was frankly not at the height of his confidence in recent weeks. Second in the “race to the sun” last year, he arrived with much more measured ambitions this year, and surrounded by uncertainties. Partly because his start to the season had been marked by… a fall, already, during an O Gran Camino in which he took 18th place overall, more than five minutes behind Jonas Vingegaard.
Buitrago wins, Gaudu loses big and Evenepoel shows up: the summary of stage 4
And to say that he already had “no great feelings”
“A bit of a stupid fall when recognizing the time with the road bike, because of a gust which took my front wheel as I passed a roundabout”, he detailed in L’Equipe. Enough to encourage its sports director Benoît Vaugrenard to exercise the greatest caution after the arrival of the first stage of this Paris-Nice. “We arrive with David Gaudu for the general, even if his preparation was disrupted by his fall on O Gran Camino. He does not have great sensations following his fall, so we will see day by day”he warned.
A “day by day” strategy more relevant than ever for the 30th in the general ranking, who is 6’48” behind the new Australian yellow jersey Luke Plapp. The race for the podium is over, as is the race for the top 10, most certainly. The quest will now be that of a stage victory. That of sensations, above all.