Ceret—Andorra la Vella, 191km
It was one of those incoherent days where everything was happening: riders in the break, riders fighting for GC among the peloton, riders fighting to make the time cut behind. It was a proper Sunday Showcase of peak action. It was a proper Queen Stage for this Tour de France. But today, constrained by life, time, and attention-span I opt to focus on what held my attention for most of the day.
As all predicted, it was a fierce day for the King of the Mountains Classification—the race for Polka-Dots was more in full swing than it has been for a generation. All the top contenders got themselves into the breakaway today. With the uphill start and all of the GC gaps so massive, Tadej Pogacar and his UAE Team were letting anyone into the break who had the legs to make it so long as they were not in the top ten on the General Classification. One of those large 30-man breakaways containing some of the finest riders in the world proceeded to go up the road early. And the best men of that break would not be seen again until the finish line, but others would…and not just because they had blown a gasket. With still 120km to race, this large and elite breakaway had some 8:30 on the peloton led by UAE.
Ah! Ah! It was one of those stages where the most obsessed fans began watching eagerly early, for the profile contained so many jagged high peaks surely it would be a fierce battle for KOM Points at the top of every climb! And the obsessed fans were right: all four riders at the top of the KOM Classification were in the breakaway today hunting for Polka-Dot Points—ISN’s Mike “Rusty” Woods (54 Points) wearing Polka-Dots, Arkea’s Nairoman Quintana (50 Points), Bahrain’s Third Week Wout Poels (49 Points), and Jumbo’s Mighty Ace Swiss Army Knife Wout Van Aert (43 Points). On tap for today’s Queen Stage route were a Category1, a Category2 that step-laddered into another Category1 without much of a descent to speak of, and finally a last Category1 all on Andorran soil where the race would be finishing this evening for its only international foray this Tour. On the Category1 climbs: 10-8-6-4-2-1 Points would be available for the first six riders over the top; on the Category2: 5-3-2-1 Points for the first four riders. As the kilometers of climbing ticked down towards the top of the first Catgory1 climb, the Montee de Mont-Louis, the anticipation built. Would all four challengers sprint for the KOM Points? Will some attempt a midrange attack to beat the better sprinters to the punch? Shall they give it everything in a sprint at the top of a mountain, or shall they save something for deeper into the stage? No 2-or-3km midrange attack came on this first climb, it would come down to a hardy mountaintop sprint. Third Week Wout Poels was the first to really lead out the uphill sprint with some 300m to the top of the climb, in his wheel wearing the Polka-Dots was the Canadian Mike Woods, and on his wheel in the Belgian Champion’s Jersey was Wout Van Aert The Swiss Army Knife of the peloton; strangely Nairo Quintana was nowhere to be seen. To be sure, Quintana is by far the worst sprinter of the four biggest challengers, but he did not even ride for fourth place. Considering Van Aert has won full bunch sprints of the Tour de France, on paper Van Aert must have been the favorite. Perhaps Poels got the jump on him or perhaps Van Aert got his timing wrong, but it was Wout Poels from the front that won this sprint to take the maximum 10 Points, Van Aert nipped Woods for second to take the 8 Points, and Woods in third took 6 Points. Quintana scored nothing. There was then a decent length of a descent and quite a steady climb to come after this where surely these aspiring Mountain Kings would try to recover or conserve their strength for the next sprint.
In between mountain peaks, a shoutout must be mentioned to the battered-and-bruised-but-still-fighting Groupama-FDJ team. They had put 3 men into this 30-man break, at this point that is three-quarters of their team. Groupama rode for their top man in the race David Gaudu, were he not sick past the point of puking in the heat midride on the evil Mont Ventoux surely Gaudu could still be in the top ten on GC. Either way, whether riding for a stage win for Gaudu or even to increase his GC position, Groupama’s Bruno Amirail’s massive workload on the front of that large breakaway cannot go unmentioned. Such valorous domestiquing duties are why we love the sport. Truly, truly, as the road climbed to the sky for kilometers and kilometers, on the borders of Andorra, Amirail did his gigantic turn on the front. It was one of those deceptive climbs were there was a bunch of uncategorized climbing before—without skipping a beat—becoming categorized climbing up the Category2 Col de Puymorens. The KOM challengers all left this one for a sprint as well. This time Wout Van Aert would not let Wout Poels step ahead. Both geared up for the sprint, ready to dig as deep as they needed with no thought to what was still to come for the rest of the stage. Woods in Polka-Dots slotted in behind them too, and finally Nairo Quintana showed his face as well. In the final hundreds of meters to the line, Van Aert and Poels wound up their sprints and Woods hung onto the coattails. But before they even tapped out their top speeds, Nairo Quintana sat up and literally shook his head: “No way,” much too high was their sprinting speed…and too much of the stage was left to climb. This time Van Aert won the sprint to take the maximum 5 Points available, Poels was second to take 3 Points, and Woods took third to take 2 Points. The large breakaway stayed together for the extremely short descent, and then it was time to battle up the Category1 Port D’Envalira.
The Port D’Envalira would be the highest elevation this 2021 Tour de France would reach, thus for the first climber over the top a special purse of prize money would be awarded: the Souvenir Henri Desgrange—named after the man that founded the Tour de France. But as the breakaway began to climb this rarified-air Category1, riders were starting to drop like flies, and the cream was rising to the top. Two riders that ominously dropped off the back not for fatigue, but because of strategy were the Grenadiers Dylan Van Baarle and Jonathan Castroviejo. While the Grenadiers were dropping back, one man saw the opportunity to finally assert his dominance of old. Nairoman Quintana attacked 2km from the summit of the Port D’Envalira and none could follow this spritely-est of spritely climbers. Nairo Quintana, the generational hero of Colombian cycling who was once heralded as the man to dominate the Tour for a generation and was destined to become the greatest climber in the history of the sport, was showing a flash of that former brilliance from those days of yore. Quintana’s dominance has not materialized, alas! he has never won the Tour and it is highly unlikely he ever will. But none of this mattered in that moment, all that mattered was securing the maximum 10 KOM Points at the summit…and the Desgrange prize would be an honorable bonus as well. In the last 2km to the top of the climb, Quintana put a full score of seconds into his rivals. What Quintana could not take with a final sprint, he would take with prestigious endurance. Behind it was Van Aert in the Belgian Jersey that took the next 8 Points available for second, Wout Poels was after him in fourth with 6 Points, and Woods shook out fourth taking just 4 Points.
By this point, there were only 44km left in the stage and the breakaway had entered Andorra. Andorra, the small Pyrenean Principality, is a ski-resort, tax haven, and functions as some sort of modern-day romantic Rivendell-esque wonderland. It is a paradise and hotbed for outdoor adventures—especially cycling, 37 pros in this Tour alone make Andorra their European home and training base of operations. Yes, this was a home stage for many of them. Many of them were in this breakaway today. They would go on to dominate the last climb and wrench the show away from the KOM Hunters. On the final Col de Beixalis, of the four KOM Hunters, only Wout Poels would score any KOM Points. How Third Week Wout Poels managed to score 6 KOM Points (3rd across the line) is beyond my knowledge, by then Jumbo’s Sepp Kuss and Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde and others had already ratcheted up the pace for the stage win so high the Mighty Ace Wout Van Aert was already cooked and strategically packing it in for the battles to come, Mike Woods had faded for the day, and Quintana had popped completely. But perhaps, on the eve of his nickname, that is why he is called Third Week Wout. The nickname comes from his days at Team Sky where he was a loyal and clutch domestique on many of Chris Froome’s victorious Grand Tour campaigns. In the final hard, mountainous third week: this Wout Poels would have saved his energy and power to unleash in the service of his leader Froome when all the other domestiques were beyond fried and fatigued. Poels’ efforts on the final climb turned out to be vital, thanks to them: he now has an 8 Point lead in the King of the Mountains Classification.
Ah! The American Sepp Kuss would go on to hold off Alejandro Valverde for the stage win ahead. It was the greatest win of Kuss’ career, it is arguably the best day we Americans have had on the Tour in a decade (since our last stage win from Tyler Farrar of a bygone era). Kuss lives in Andorra now, these are adopted home roads. He was impressively strong, he denied old Valverde a swansong victory as they were denied to him by younger riders in the Ardennes Classics in April as well. Behind, the Ineos Grenadiers rode their hearts out to successfully isolate Tadej Pogacar. From the breakaway Van Baarle and Castroviejo had purposely dropped back in an attempt to support their Grenadier leader Richard Carapaz. But once more Pogacar proved the uncrackable Young Beowulf Crowned King. On the final climbs all the GC favorites still left would try attacks, but Pogacar was instantly able to cover them all. At the end of the day, Pogacar and all the top GC men would finish together with the same time—save Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) who actually lost contact with the GC group on a descent and could not catch back up and lost further time on the final climb. And finally, 34:57 after Sepp Kuss crossed the finish line as the winner of the stage, Mark Cavendish the Manx Missile wearing the Green Jersey finished the stage with a Wolfpack of 3 Quickstep teammates—a comfortable 10 minutes ahead of the time cut for the day. With this day complete, Cavendish’s biggest hurdle to making it to Paris is now cleared, no other mountain stage will have so much early climbing for Cavendish to get dangerously distanced.
But, but, as was the subject of the day: my, my, these KOM Hunters! What a war for the Polka-Dots this is truly becoming! Seeing diminutive Nairoman Quintana in the hunt is no surprise, it is almost natural—ah! in 2013 he wore that jersey O! so well. Third Week Wout Poels is an unexpected challenger, but with a crashed-out Bahrain team leader and his climbing prowess already expounded upon: surely Wout Poels is a worthy adversary and not to be underestimated in his Third Week domain that approaches. With the well-known talented climbing and endurance of Mike Woods, it is no surprise he is vying for this climber’s honor. Ah! Ah! This Spring, Woods said he has been on the form of his life; seeing him in the Ardennes, in Romandie, Suisse, and here at the Tour…O! Surely I believe it! But, but, it is the fourth challenger…the one most biasedly closest to my heart who still surprises me most. Wout Van Aert, Wout Van Aert is actually mounting a challenge for the King of the Mountains Polka-Dot Jersey. I know, we all know, he is The Swiss Army Knife of the peloton, but truly, truly the most any of us thought that he would ever net would be two or three Green Jerseys at some point in his career—like his versatile predecessor the Rockstar Peter Sagan. But Greedy Green can wait, Van Aert is now in the rare position to take Chicken Pox Polka-Dots—surely he shall not pass up the once-in-a-blue-moon position he finds himself. This is what I mean when I say we are living in the Second Golden Age of Cycling, the top stars of the sport exceed our expectations by achieving or targeting results in a Range of objectives that seem thoroughly outside their wheelhouses. I heard rumor Wout did not even intend to make the break today, but when he found himself there of course he had to challenge for the KOM Points. He dug deep with the others, and attacking over the top of each climb deadened their legs for the stage finale. But at the end of the day, it was Wout Poels that moved back into the KOM Polka-Dot Jersey he wore way back on Stage 8. Poels has 74 Points, Woods is behind him with 66 Points, and Quintana and Van Aert are both behind tied for third with 64 Points each. It was a fiery battle today, luckily for all their legs it is a rest day tomorrow. But come Tuesday, come Wednesday, come Thursday: these men shall have three more massive rounds of open warfare to establish their high-altitude Kingdom. There can only be one Highlander. Shall they be in the breaks once more for the coming three stages? Who shall be the one to don this most unique of Jerseys, so beloved by all? Who in Paris shall claim the prized Polka-Dots?
Cycling Odysseys 