Jai Hindley believes the fight for the podium at this year’s Tour de France will last until Paris, as the peloton approaches a triple-header of high mountain stages to end the second week.
The Bora-Hansgrohe rider sits third overall behind Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) ahead of Friday’s summit finish at Grand Colombier, with a handy buffer on the rest of the competition thanks to his solo stage victory in the Pyrenees.
Hindley has a plan but is keeping it in-house ahead of what could be a defining, but he does not believe deciding, three days of racing, and tapped the side of his nose knowingly when asked about strategy after stage 12 on Thursday.
“I’ll keep that under my hat, hey,” the Australian said. “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I’ve never ridden the Grand Colombier but I think it will be super tough and yeah, it’s the Tour de France so it’s going to be really hard and we’ll be racing up there full noise. It should be cool.”
The 27-year-old, after paying tribute to fellow West Australian cyclist Connor Lambert who died in a training accident in Belgium on Wednesday, finished stage 12 in the yellow jersey group after a chaotic start in which he, Pogačar and Vingegaard all had to mark each other.
“It was a big fight for the break all day until kilometre 90 or something. Everyone was involved, so it was full on,” he said.
“Cycling isn’t so traditional anymore. Let’s say there’s a pretty modern way of racing now, which is expect the unexpected. You just have to roll with the punches. I mean, the yellow jersey putting in attacks there with over 100km to go…”
Hindley may be the only rider who hasn’t mentally conceded to the dominance of Vingegaard and Pogačar, saying he’s aiming to do his best in what is his Tour debut.
The climber lost touch with the pair over the Tourmalet on stage 6 and on the steepest slopes of the Puy de Dôme on stage 9, opting instead to pace his own effort.
Hindley conceded his stage triumph in Laruns may have affected his energy reserves for the following days but added the payoff – being a win, a day in yellow and what is currently a one minute and 42 second advantage on the next best on general classification, Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers), was worth it.
“It was pretty unexpected to be in the break that day, but I think everyone had a hard day in the end and everyone went up this last climb full gas,” he said. “I also raced the whole day and could come away with a stage win, so it was a risky move but … got a stage win, got a buffer and it’s taken a lot of pressure off the team, getting a win early in the race, so that’s also nice.”
Bora-Hansgrohe sports director Enrico Gasparotto, who is at the Tour after working alongside Hindley when he became the first Australian to win the Giro d’Italia last year, agreed.
“Afterwards you can always analyse things in a different way,” Gasparotto said.
“Maybe, yeah, [he] probably spent quite a lot that day and we paid that back on Puy de Dôme, for example. Maybe having Jai calm and relaxed with the GC group we could be a little bit back in GC but maybe more energy in the legs, you know, is probably overthinking things.
“But I’m pretty convinced what we did that day is a good thing, is something that we needed for Jai himself, his self-confidence and also for the team because when you have your leader that close in GC, still after 10 stages or more, it’s easier to bring everybody together and to work together as a proper team,” Gasparotto continued.
“I would always prefer to do what we did, compared to wait and see, because also the Tour you never know every day something can happen, a crash, illness, whatever.
“I think in a big Tour take something out of the stages than lose something on the way. That’s my approach and I think it’s better to be like that because if something happens, maybe one day Jai cannot sleep well during the night and he has a bad day on the climbs, then you have always this margin that you can play a little bit and that is absolutely better.”
Hindley, who by his own admission generally improves the further into a Grand Tour he gets, has placed an emphasis on the third and final week of the Tour since the outset of the race.
He spent five to six weeks on the road with Bora-Hansgroghe coach Hendrik Werner in preparation, and physically reconned the first six stages, as well as stages 15, 16, and 17 in the Alps.
“We have a lot of tough stages coming up. I’m sure the time trial [stage 16 on Tuesday] will be crucial, it’s a really tough TT. Stage 17 with Col de la Loze, I think this climb is pretty epic and will probably be one of the toughest of the race, also going to high altitude [2304m], and then with a tricky descent and then finishing on the landing strip there, that’s a monster day, and if you’re not having a good day on that stage, you can lose a lot of time," Hindley said.
"And I think also [stage] 15, the finish to Mont Blanc, that’s also epic with a really tough finish. I’m actually pretty keen.”
