With the Pyrenees behind them, the Tour granted the sprinters one of the last chances before the attack on the Alps and Caleb Ewan, a real comeback on Viviani and Groenewegen, was ready to seize it to do – the only sprinter in this Tour – the encore after Toulouse.
The stage in Nimes, where the Tour rested on Monday, also served to offer Alaphilippe one more day to restore the rather shaken morale after Sunday's défaillance on the Prat d'Albis, which burned part of the lead, accumulated in this fantastic Tour of his, over all his immediate rivals. In particular Thibaut Pinot, who proved to be the strongest climber capable - unlike Landa - of successfully finalizing every attack.
And with tomorrow's big stage from Embrun to Valloire, which includes three cols over 2 meters like the Vars, the Izoard and the Galibier, Pinot has already supplanted Alaphilippe in the favor of the bookmakers for the final victory. It will be important for Alaphilippe that in the Alps he finds the support of the team that left him alone in the last Pyrenean stage, the fault of the unexpected crush of Eric Mas who practically disappeared from the group of the best, ending up in the rear of the race.
Trouble for the yellow jersey, if Mas doesn't recover, because Alaphilippe would find himself fighting against formidable and better equipped opponents: Ineos has the Thomas-Bernal duo with the Colombian, a purebred climber, who also seems to be doing better of Welsh. Pinot has always been helped in the preparation of his attacks by Marc Gaudu, a young man with great hopes of a French cycling that is returning to the glories of a distant time. Alaphilippe, who today from Pont du Gard to Gap, shouldn't have major problems for his yellow jersey, thrilling days ahead in which he will also have to beware of two characters like Krujiswick and Buchmann, who are little talked about but who are in the area podium ready to take the chance of life.
