There was a lack of a stage reminiscent of the old days of the Tour, when there were national teams and French riders, not selected by Marcel Bidot, racing in the various regional teams. And it was precisely them, the Barbotins or the Hassenforders to name two of the most popular of the time, who unleashed breakaways especially in the first stages with the big names calm until they accumulated delays of even more than fifteen minutes.
So much then, Coppi, Koblet, Bobet – the greats of the 50s – in the Alps or the Pyrenees took back the yellow jersey and the Tour. Today's cycling is often measured in seconds, which is why yesterday's stage which included four Gpm on the Massif Central and which has practically changed little or nothing in the standings, will be remembered in this Tour because it is the first that saw the day's breakaway of 32 riders, completely out of contention in the standings, go through, accumulating at the finish line Mende a lead of over 18 minutes.
There is the usual Sagan who honors his green jersey every day, there is Greg Van Avermaet who has a great desire to win a stage after having narrowly missed that of Roubaix when he was still in the yellow jersey, there are two Quick-Step Floors: Gerard Philippe, chasing glory on the roads for him rather stingy in the Grande Boucle and Alaphilippe who never misses the opportunity to add a few dots in defense of his polka dot jersey as leader of the climbers and with him, c he is Thomas De Gendt, a long-distance privateer who never gives up on adventure, there is also Sylvain Chavanel, a veteran of the Tour on whose roads he reached 60 km pedaled yesterday.
But the winner, surprising everyone in the last km of ascent of the Croix Nueve, was the Spaniard Omar Fraile who caught up with the Belgian Stuyven and preceded Alaphilippe by 6 seconds. It is his first victory in the Tour. Sagan arrives fourth at 12”, fifth is the Italian Caruso at 17”. The fugitives arrive in dribs and drabs. To see what happens to the group with the best, you have to wait more than 18 minutes and Primoz Roglic is the only one of the men in the standings who took advantage of the climb ahead of the finish to gain 8” on Chris Froome, Tom Dumoulin and the yellow jersey Geraint Thomas who close with the same time.
A handful of seconds that are enough to nominate the Slovenian, a former ski jumper, fourth in the standings at 2'38 from Thomas, as the second force – the first obviously remains the increasingly solid Dumoulin – to annoy the British supremacy of Team Sky , since Quintana, Bardet and Landa also lost something from Froome and Thomas yesterday .
