As Wout van Aert clipped off the front of the Tour de France peloton as it closed in on its destination of Issoire in a doomed attempt to bridge up to the day’s break, many onlookers took it as a valedictory attack.
Earlier that morning Lidl-Trek rider Mattias Skjelmose had told Danish television that he’d heard a rumour in the peloton that van Aert was to depart the race tomorrow to be with his pregnant wife in anticipation of the birth of his second child. So many thought the attack we were witnessing on the road was the Belgian's final roll of the dice.
