In the 500 meters of the final climb in Rodez, Chris Froome recovers with interest what he had lost in the 350 meters of the finish on the Peyragudes wall: the Pyrenean "spring" that had brought Fabio Aru to yellow, overturning the consolidated hierarchies of the Tour, it vanishes after just two days at the end of a stage on paper that was quite trivial but which in the end was not trivial given that it reshuffled the standings bringing the dictator of the Tour back to the lead. "All is not lost", said Aru at the finish after handing the yellow jersey back to Froome, but the analysis of the stage isn't too reassuring for the Italian champion left alone by his Astana teammates who vanished in the hot phase of the race. Without Cataldo and Fuglsang, forced to abandon the Tour due to the consequences of a crash in the first of the two Pyrenean stages, Astana is very little compared to the battleship Sky, which protects and escorts Froome even at the cost of sacrificing a potential Tour winner like Landa. Already isolated, Aru also put in his pedaling in the central part of the group just as the tussle broke out in view of the attack on the final climb of the Cote de Saint-Pierre. When the compact group – which had caught up with Thomas De Gendt, the last fugitive of the day – split up under the effect of the wind and the work of the teams aiming to win the stage – the Sunweb for Matthews, the Bmc for Van Avermaet , the Quick Step Floors for Gilbert and the Dimension Data for Boasson Hagen – Aru found himself cut from the games like Quintana and Contador.
All the other men in the standings were ahead of him, Froome and Uran even tried to enter the final sprint in which the Australian Michael Matthews prevailed in power ahead of Van Avermaet. Behind it was a succession of holes that gave a great job to the timekeepers of the Tour. Froome and Uran arrived 1” from the first two in a group regulated by Boasson-Hagen on Gilbert. Bardet's delay was calculated at 5”. Landa was clocked at 15”. Then at 22” Contador and Quintana crossed the finish line. Aru reached 30th at 24”. The yellow jersey passed on the shoulders of Froome with 18" on the Sardinian, followed by Bardet at 23" and by Uran at 29". A repairable distraction, that of Aru, or the first symptoms of tiredness after two weeks of great Tour racing? Tactically, the Italian champion is more inclined to attack than to defend himself: without the pressure of the shirt, perhaps he runs more easily, even if Astana's weakness in protecting him is an Achilles' heel that cannot fail to condition the decisive last week of the Tour , starting with today's stage with the finish in the Massif Central.
