The only one to have a fixed and booked place in this Tour is Vincenzo Nibali, yellow jersey and absolute master of the race, who even today in the first Pyrenean stage conceded nothing to his rivals, managing every moment of the day with his usual authority. With tonight's one, the Shark reaches fifty for the jerseys worn, between the pink of the Giro, the red of the Vuelta and the yellow of the Tour. Not a small goal but one for a few. Nibali, left without teammates on the last hill hors de category, the Porte de Bales, limited himself to seeing what those closest to him (or rather, less distant) in the standings were up to. Valverde tried to sprint but immediately gave up, struggling a little more than usual to keep the wheels of the yellow jersey on the steepest sections. The Spaniard still remains second but his place is now threatened by Thibaut Pinot who took advantage of Romain Bardet's crisis to enter the podium area. Bardet lost almost two minutes from his direct rivals, dropping to fifth place in the general classification, also overtaken by Jean Christophe Peraud.
Worse than him was the American Teejay Van Garderen who slipped back to sixth place almost 10 minutes behind Nibali. But if Nibali is the great protagonist of the Tour, the one of the day in Bagnères-de-Luchon was the Australian Michael Rogers who crowned with success a stage that saw him among the most active initiators of a breakaway of 21 riders born even before the Tour faced the Portet d'Aspet, the hill on whose descent Fabio Casartelli died when he fell in the 1995 Tour. For Rogers it is the third stage won between the Tour and the Giro where he prevailed in Savona and on the Zoncolan. For Tinkoff-Saxo, an orphan of Contador, it is the encore after Maika's success in Risoul. Few remain in the descent towards the finish line with Rogers: Vockler, Serpa, Kiriyenka and Gautier. But it is the Australian who manages to take the handful of seconds sufficient to arrive alone on a finish line that belongs to the legend of the Tour, since the distant times of Lapize and Faber. Second at 9” is Vockler who precedes Kiriyenka, Serpa and Gautier in the sprint. After about ten seconds Van Avermaet, Kwiatkoswki and Montaguti arrive in trickles. Nibali reaches 8'32” together with Valverde, Thibaut Pinot and Peraud. Tomorrow the second Pyrenean stage: departure from Saint Gaudens and uphill finish in Saint-Lary-Pla d'Adet.
