Lorient—Pontivy, 182km
It was a day of grizzly war on the Tour de France. O! So many of the riders rode in like shellshocked soldiers finally relieved from duty in the trenches, or like the Achaeans hauling their heavy armored bodies to their ships on the beaches of Troy after yet another long grueling day of war. To run through the casualty lists, to even try to count the crashes would be impossible affairs. It would be easier to count who made it through it all unscathed for surely it was no more than a tithe of the peloton. Mathieu Van Der Poel the Renaissance Madman wearing the Yellow Jersey played the finale masterfully as he rode not even for himself, but in service of his Alpecin-Fenix teammate Tim Merlier. Merlier has proven himself to be a fine and legitimate sprinter in recent years, and he proved it once more this day taking a massively fine victory over what remained of the decimated field. Yes, yes, Alpecin-Fenix were the only unscathed victors this day as they took their second stage win in a row.
The Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz finished in the lead group as well for the Ineos Grenadiers. Carapaz and Ecuador can quietly celebrate the good position, but already the Grenadiers must be weary. In the first two stages both Richie Porte and Tao Geoghegan Hart, nominal Grenadier team leaders, lost minutes on the General Classification (GC). And early on in this Stage 3, in the wet and rain, in the midst of the peloton: the Grenadiers’ fourth named protected rider, Geraint Thomas, crashed heavily. O! O! To see Thomas on the ground holding what looked to be a broken collarbone, why he looked like his legendary British or Welsh hero King Arthur succumbing to his battle wounds. Though mortally wounded in battle, legend says King Arthur was whisked away to the Isle of Avalon to nurse his wounds or go into an eternal sleep until he comes again at Britain’s Darkest Hour. Geraint Thomas could have done something similar: gone back to his training base in Monaco, even gone to rest and recover in Cardiff in Wales—not too far from this Brittany crash. But Thomas opted to battle on like a warrior, to pick himself up and keep fighting. He is one of the hardmen of cycling, it is not yet his time to go the way of Arthur to a lost Celtic Isle across the sea. Thomas and the rest of the Grenadiers survived the day. But all the leaders have now shipped off GC time to their rivals, save Carapaz who will soon ship time myself in the Time Trial on Wednesday. With the two mighty Slovenians still in the race, it has been predicted that the Grenadiers will need to play a tactically flawless race and use multiple GC riders to their advantage, but how are they to do that now with injuries and/or time losses for Thomas, Porte, and Geoghegan Hart?
Alas! in that same Thomas crash, one man’s Tour did indeed end. Robert Gesink (Jumbo-Visma) was caught up in the crash, and his injuries were severe enough he had to abandon the Tour. Ah! Ah! How heartbreaking it must be for him and the Jumbo Wasps to see him go so early on while hopes were still so high. Jumbo leader Primoz Roglic came to this race in an attempt to take victory in an act of Relentless Redemption. To have one of the seven lieutenants leave with such injuries was like sending away one of the 300 Spartans early on after one of the early skirmishes on the Thermopylae pass. Ai! Ai! How that man would rue his injuries that took him away from his warrior-brothers in desperate need of every man they could acquire.
But Jumbo-Visma had far more problems to deal with on the day. With 10km to go, their team leader Roglic the Relentless hit the deck hard on a narrow road. There were pinch-points a plenty, the peloton was already nervous and exhausted, just a couple kilometers before Movistar’s Superman Lopez and Groupama’s David Gaudu had been caught up in their own crash as well. Roglic went down hard on his left side, on the far left side of the road. The shoulder and hip of his jersey were tattered and torn away. He was not quick to get up, a bike change was needed. A few Jumbo teammates were caught up in the crash as well, and more went back to help him. With only 10km left in the flat sprint stage, it was a ferocious chase to limit time losses; for it is not until inside of 3km to go that crash victims would receive the same time gap as the riders next to them. Roglic was physically bleeding and it shall affect him for the rest of the Tour, but in that moment the GC time bleeding was even worse. Like a soldier heavily wounded and gushing blood from a shrapnel explosion, Roglic and his team hurried to the finish where a GC-tourniquet could stop the time-bleeding. But the Jumbo Wasps could not make any dent in the peloton’s lead as the sprinters’ trains drove the pace for the slightly downhill final kilometers; only crashes further ahead that marred other GC favorites helped Roglic limit his losses. Jumbo’s only Pyrrhic victory was that Wout Van Aert finished with the leading group to maintain a high place on GC, but Roglic would finish 1:21 down on the stage winner Tim Merlier. There is no way around it, this was a heavy blow to his GC campaign.
And yet, as stated crashes further ahead did help Roglic limit his losses. Superman Lopez and the rest of Movistar finished in the same group as Roglic. Ahead, with only 4km to go, yet another crash held up or caught out many on GC, only Carapaz the Grenadier and a handful of sprinters with their lead out men managed to escape. In that crash, even the other mighty Slovenian would get caught up: Tadej Pogacar (UAE) wearing the White Jersey was spotted amongst the fallen casualties. Pogacar was quick to his feet and saddled up on the bike again, like the best of GC men he knew there was no time to ache or nurse his wounds until he had crossed the finish line: he too must limit his losses to his unscathed GC rivals ahead. Pogacar has entered this Tour with an air or aura akin to that of Young Beowulf returning home from Heorot after slaying Grendel and his Mother: he is a mighty hero and a warrior of great renown, no longer just the talented boy he was in 2019. To see even this talented and seeming impervious one get caught up in a crash was alarming. With him were Geraint Thomas, Estaban Chaves (Team BikeExchange), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), and Sergio Higuita and Rigoberto Uran (both of EF Education-Nippo), all crossed the finish line 26 seconds down on the victorious Tim Merlier. But one man who did not get up from that crash, like Beowulf in his old age, was Bahrain Victorious’ Jack Haig. He lay there on the ground, but he had not the comfort of knowing he had slayed a dragon, a giant wicked worm. No, no, Jack Haig could only feel physical pain, and knowledge that his Tour de France was over before it had even gotten going. Ah! Ah! It is so cruel to see how brutal this sport can be. A whole season built around this race, and within an instant it ends in complete sorrow. Yes, yes, I think this would be the appropriate time to utter the cliché for the one and only time this Tour: Today was not a day you could win the Tour, but you sure could lose it.
If the unknowing reader thought all these crashes and casualties were now over with only 4km to go, they would be wrong. Still many fine sprinters had been at the front and were ready to show their paces in the finale after Mathieu the Renaissance Madman’s ridiculous bullet train lead-out while in the Yellow Jersey. The speeds were scorching and incredibly intense, the finish was on a slight downhill—something that has proven dangerous in the past of other races. In a typical sprinter’s fight for Merlier’s wheel were the Pocket Rocket Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and the Rockstar Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe). But on a gentle righthand curve with only a few hundred meters to go, as Ewan was moving up on the inside apex, Tim Merlier launched his final sprint. It appeared Ewan’s front wheel must have skimmed Merlier’s back wheel, for Ewan immediately lost control. Caleb Ewan’s front wheel swerved left and he crashed into Peter Sagan right next to him. Both skidded and screeched across the unforgiving payment and all stage honors were completely dashed. Peter Sagan was up quickly and hopped back onto his bike, not that he was in a hurry at this point, he crossed the finish line immediately and presumably went to the get checked out by a doctor. Surely, he knows, crashes such as these happen in such a sport as this. But Caleb Ewan the Pocket Rocket was very slow to get up. All the GC riders and their teammates who were hemorrhaging time flew by him as he lay injured on the ground in gruesome pain. Like all the other riders before him, Caleb Ewan too looked like a mortally wounded warrior from some ancient battle of old. In this instant, brave and unbowed Spartacus the gladiator-rebel comes to mind. Though so close to the line, Ewan was the last one to cross it. Surely, he shall have a tough time sprinting tomorrow, if he even starts the stage.
We lovers of cycling watched this whole stage finale with heavy hearts. None want to see GC campaigns marred or ended by crashes such as these. None want to see race ending injuries for any Tour rider who has worked so hard to be here. And yet all cycling lovers know this is of course part of the sport. For three stages we have seen the “ecstasy of victory” from the winners, their teams, and the cycling world. Today, we were served the first rounds of the inevitable “agony of defeat.” Not every battle can be won—unless you are Alexander the Great. No one is immortal—including Alexander the Great. Today was the sloppiest last 10km of cycling I have ever seen. Today was sober and somber viewing. The body counts were so high. It was not so much a question of which teams are in good position, but which teams are in the least worst position. The Ineos Grenadiers and the Jumbo-Visma Wasps are now both banged up from head to toe, even talented Beowulfian Pogacar has not survived unscathed. With still 18 stages to go, the war of attrition has properly begun.
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