After a week in the Alps, stage 18 of the Tour de France to Bourg-en-Bresse was expected to be a welcome return for the sprinters of the peloton, though the breakaway and Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) had other ideas, hanging on to win by metres at the end of 185km in the escape.
A clutch of sprinter’s teams, including green jersey Jasper Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck squad, led the peloton towards the finish, closing down the ever-increasing gap to the four men out front – one which had never extended to more than 1:30 during the day. However, the collective calculation was off, and Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) led the break into the final kilometre.
The Belgian worked for Pascal Eenkhoorn, who had bridged across 58km earlier, but it was Asgreen who came away with an unlikely victory. The Dane came off the wheel of Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) after Campenaerts peeled off 300 metres out, and successfully held off Eenkhoorn in the dash to the line.
Abrahamsen rounded out the podium, while it was that man Philipsen who led the peloton home fractions of a second later for fourth ahead of Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), his bid for a fifth stage win this Tour on hold.
Asgreen’s win, the 12th of his career and first at a Grand Tour, saves the race for his Soudal-QuickStep team built around sprinter Fabio Jakobsen. The Dutchman was forced out of the race due to crash injuries ahead of stage 12, but he and every other member of the Belgian squad can now call their Tour a success.
“Obviously, the situation was not ideal. I would have preferred to have gone with six, seven or eight riders, but it’s also the last week of the Tour and we’re coming off some really hard weeks,” Asgreen said about the three-man-turned-four-man break after the finish. “We’ve seen it before that even a small group can manage to cheat the sprinters’ teams. I didn’t rule it out.
“It was a team time trial to the finish - I really couldn’t have done it without Pascal, Victor and Jonas. They all did amazing out there. We all deserved to win with the work we put out there. I’m really happy to come away with the win.
“It means so much,” he said of the victory. “With the period I had the last year with my crash in the Tour de Suisse and having to leave the Tour de France last year. I’ve come a long way.
“To cap it off with a victory like this… I want to dedicate it to all the people who helped me throughout the last year. I would also like to dedicate it to Dries Devenyns. I saw my teammate and it’s his last Tour in his last season. He was really emotional so I would like to dedicate it to him, his wife, his family and all the people who helped me in the last year.”
The stage may have produced an unexpected result, but the first man over the line was the only real surprise of the day. As expected, there were no changes in the general classification or any of the other jersey competitions on the largely flat stage. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) remains in the lead, while Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) are secure in the polka dot and white jerseys. Philipsen moves from 323 to 352 green jersey points, and his lead over Pedersen extended from 137 to 150 points, even if he missed out on another stage win.
A possible penultimate chance for the sprinters – or another for the breakaway – follows on stage 19 to Poligny on Friday, while Sunday’s finale in Paris will certainly be the last-chance saloon for the fast men left in the Tour.
How it unfolded
After the chaos and GC revelations of the previous two stages, taking in the time trial to Combloux and the brutal climb of the Col de la Loze, the Tour de France peloton faced a simpler, relatively gentler, task on stage 18 from Moûtiers to Bourg-en-Bresse.
The 185km stage featured just two fourth-category climbs and would be a welcome sight for the sprinters, with the largely flat stage heralding another bunch sprint finish, eight days on from the last.
With seemingly little real hope of a breakaway lasting to the end, there was, as expected, not a massive battle for the break after the peloton rolled through the long 16km neutral zone and began the stage.
Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) jumped off the front soon after the flag was dropped for his fifth spell in the break this July. The Dane was swiftly joined in the move by Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) – for the fourth time – and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) – his second escape.
If it wasn’t already obvious enough that it should be a stage for the fast men, the teams interested in sprinting were quick to seize control of the peloton and limit the breakaway’s advantage to a stingy 1:30.
The Alpecin-Deceuninck team of four-time stage winner and green jersey holder Jasper Philipsen were joined at the front by Jayco-AlUla, representing Dylan Groenewegen, and dsm-firmenich, for Sam Welsford.
The two classified climbs of the day – the Côte de Chambery-le-Haut at 117km to go, and the Côte de Boissieu 79km out – saw Abrahamsen take both points on offer to take his total for the Tour to three.
Meanwhile, the peloton had closed to within a minute, eager to not give the men out front any leeway or hope whatsoever. At the rear, Simon Geschke (Cofidis) was struggling to hold on. The German had beaten the time cut on Wednesday by just 1:20 but continued his battle with a stomach bug here.
The second of the two climbs brought at least some action at the front, with Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), and Pascal Eenkhoorn (Lotto-Dstny) among the riders giving it a nudge on the way up.
Giving Eenkhoorn a nudge was Philipsen himself, who jumped with the Lotto man in an attempt to block the attack. In the end, however, none of the moves would go clear, though Eenkhoorn would try again shortly afterwards.
In the meantime, Geschke’s Tour de France came to an end, the German climbing off the bike at 73km to go – Paris so close and yet so far – as his teammate Victor Lafay also struggled at the rear of the peloton on the hills.
As the group closed to within 30 seconds of the break with 65km to go, Eenkhoorn had a go again, darting off the front and linking up with the break 7km later as his teammate Campenaerts dropped back to help.
With an extra man bolstering the move and the intermediate sprint at Saint-Rambert-en-Bugey approaching, the break’s advantage grew out back close to a minute again, while Abrahamsen pipped Eenkhoorn at the line to grab another cash bonus for him and his team.
In the peloton, Alpecin-Deceuninck led it out for Philipsen, who took fifth with little contest to add 11 to his mammoth point total as second in competition Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) took 10, the Frenchman now 146 points in arrears.
Heading into the final 50km, the break had built their lead back to 1:05, though the peloton would kick it up a notch as the finish line neared, with Lidl-Trek and Bora-Hansgrohe also contributing on the run towards Bourg-en-Bresse.
The breakaway quartet persevered into headwinds of around 15kph, racing into the last 30km 45 seconds up on the chasing pack and hitting the short unclassified climb 17km out with a 35-second gap.
Campenaerts, voted the most aggressive rider of the day, and his three companions fought on into the final 10km, the time gap gradually reducing but the sprint squads reticent to commit too many of their men to the chase.
At 5km, the break still had 10 seconds as Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) powered the chase, but it would surely be a matter of time before they were finally reabsorbed. More teams, including Bahrain Victorious and Astana Qazaqstan, flowed to the front in the final kilometres, though their progression towards the break appeared to have stalled.
Alpecin-Deceuninck were back up front under the flamme rouge, while up front Campenaerts was giving his all to make the move last.
By the time the powerful Belgian pulled off the front, with the finish line in sight, it was clear that the escape would cling on to contest the win. They did just that moments later, with Abrahamsen tentatively launching at 200 metres to go before Asgreen shot off his rear wheel.
The 2021 Tour of Flanders winner looked to be launching Eenkhoorn from his own rear wheel in the process, but the Dutchman couldn’t pull alongside him in the run to the line, leaving Asgreen to celebrate his first Tour stage win and a famous triumph for the breakaway.
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