News Round-up: Drama at Tour de France and Giro Donne

It was a dramatic day of racing, with the Tour de France hitting the mountains of the Pyrenees and the Giro d’Italia Donne also indulging in more hilly terrain. There were significant developments in the overall complexions of both races, dramatically so in the case of one. We’ve got the biggest news from both races, plus the latest from the Tour of Austria. Elsewhere, we’ve had a look at the routes for the road events at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, sure to whet the appetite for next summer.

| Van Vleuten stamps authority on Giro Donne

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Van Vleuten celebrates another stage win as she strengthens her grip on the pink jersey

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) took advantage of tired legs to turn a likely day for the sprinters into a winning afternoon on stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia Donne. With her 101st victory as a professional, the Dutchwoman now holds what looks to be an unassailable lead in the hunt for the maglia rosa.

With Van Vleuten coming over the line alone, it was up to Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) to show what might have been by pipping Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) in a sprint for second place, whilst a diverse group of sprinters, rouleurs and climbers alike followed them over the line. Van Vleuten capitalised on the 2.5km climb that fell within the final 15km to open a gap that would not be closed before the line in Canelli.

With many expecting a sprint at the end of the stage, there was no great battle for the day’s breakaway and the only move that stuck was a duet between Elinor Barker (Uno-X Pro Cycling) and Petra Stiasny (Fenix-Deceuninck) with just over 50km to ride. But the peloton had this move well under control approaching the final climb, where Van Vleuten made good on her pre-race plan.

“For sure it was the plan to attack before [the stage], so you wake up after yesterday - a really hard stage - and then the team comes again with a plan to attack, and I am always in for a plan to attack,” gleamed Van Vleuten. “It was a 2.5km climb before the finish, and you could also feel that everybody was tired from yesterday, so then my chances to make a difference on a short climb like that get bigger!”

Revelling in her coup against the sprinters, Van Vleuten exclaimed, “It’s super cool to win on a day that beforehand, you think ‘this may be for a sprinter.’ I think Lorena Wiebes also showed that it could be for a sprinter, but I tried to avoid that and go for an attack!”

| Tour de France drama: Hindley in yellow as Vingegaard drops Pogacar

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Jai Hindley dons the famous yellow jersey on his Tour debut

Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 5 of the Tour de France after being part of the day’s early breakaway and attacking to go solo over the final climb and take victory in Laruns.

The former Giro d’Italia winner finished 33 seconds ahead of a chasing group that included defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), who had attacked and dropped his GC rivals on the final climb. It was enough of a margin for Hindley to go into the yellow jersey, a boost to the Australian’s overall hopes.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished in the third group, 54 seconds down on Vingegaard, already putting a significant gap between the two favourites after only five stages.

After a long fight, a 36-man breakaway got away on the opening flat section of the stage, including Hindley, who would prove to be the strongest after a whittling down process over the Col du Soudet and Col d’Ichère.

On the final climb, the Col de Marie Blanque, the GC riders finally engaged and Jumbo-Visma set it up for Vingegaard to attack and distance almost all of his competitors. After all of UAE Team Emirates’ work controlling the stage, they had little to respond to the Dane, who quickly went a minute clear of Pogačar, and the gap never came back down.

“I was sort of just improvising out there and enjoying some bike racing, and I managed to find myself in that group,” Hindley said at the finish. “I enjoyed it out there today. It’s really incredible. I have no words, really I have no words

“The guys in the radio were screaming about riding to the line. I couldn’t really hear so much what was happening, but I just wanted to gain as much time as possible and also the stage win. And I found myself in the yellow jersey, so that’s pretty cool too.”

| Cobbled climb dominates Paris 2024 Olympic Games road races

©️ Paris 2024

The men’s road race course for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

The next Olympic road race champions will have to be capable on punchy cobbled climbs, as an explosive circuit in the centre of Paris will host the battle for the gold medals at the 2024 Games.

The courses for the road events at the Paris Olympics next summer were unveiled this week, with the Classics-favoured road races joined by flat 32.4km time trials the previous weekend.

The likes of Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands), Wout van Aert (Belgium), and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) will surely be licking their lips, as three ascents of the Côte de la Butte Montmartre - 1km, 6.5%, narrow, and cobbled - line the finales of both the men’s and women’s road races.

Both races will start in the centre of Paris but venture out southwest of the French capital before returning for laps of an 18.4km finishing circuit, plus a 9.5km run-in along the Seine to the finish on the Pont d’Iéna bridge in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The men’s race will total 273km and 2800m of elevation gain, with 10 further short climbs in the legs before the race enters Paris. The women’s race is 158km and 1700m, with six of those climbs ahead of the finishing circuit.

The time trials, meanwhile, take place on a much flatter 32.4km course that also starts and finishes along the river Seine in the centre of Paris, either side of a trip out to the Bois de Vincennes park, home to the Jacques Anquetil Velodrome that hosted the Olympics in Paris 100 years previously.

| Jayco AlUla 1-2 at the Tour of Austria

There seems to have been an increasing number of team 1-2 finishes in recent years, and Jayco AlUla added to that list on stage 4 of the Tour of Austria.

Matteo Sobrero was the day’s winner, hitting the line just ahead of teammate Felix Engelhardt as a select group of 20 riders clipped off to contest the finish. Engelhardt opened things up before Sobrero sprinted with such force that he opened a gap, into which the German was able to slot in order to sail home in the slipstream, the pair producing a tandem celebration that will have delighted their sponsors.

“Special thanks to the team today, they did a really good job for me, especially Felix who did a great lead-out,” said Sobrero, who collected his first win of the season.

Michael Boros (Elkov-Kasper) claimed the final spot on the podium, as race leader Jhonatan Narvaez (Ineos Grenadiers) finished safely in the front group to retain the leader’s jersey with one stage remaining.

The 10 bonus seconds for the stage win moved Sobrero up four places into second overall, 28 seconds down on Narvaez, who himself added three bonus seconds at the earlier intermediate sprint. Jayco-AlUla have the other rider on the virtual podium in Jesús David Peña at 31 seconds, while Engelhardt makes it three of them in the top four.

| Longo Borghini and Niedermaier out of Giro Donne

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Longo Borghini gets up after her dramatic crash

The Giro d’Italia Donne was struck by two high-profile withdrawals as Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) both left the race on Wednesday’s stage 6.

Longo Borghini, winner of stage 4, had crashed heavily in the finale to stage 5 and, despite limping to the finish of that stage, was deemed unfit to start stage 6. The team confirmed that whilst the Italian had not suffered any broken bones or concussion symptoms, a number of contusions and abrasions from the crash had left her in too much pain to continue.

Longo Borghini had already plummeted from second place overall out of GC contention, but the Giro also lost her replacement as Annemiek van Vleuten’s closest challenger. 20-year-old Niedermaier, who made a stunning breakthrough with her solo victory on stage 5, had to leave the race after suffering a horrible crash with 30km to go.

The German was involved in a collision with Urška Žigart (Jayco-AlUla) and was seen sitting on the road with bloodied knees and mouth. She was unable to remount, and Žigart was also forced to abandon.

Niedermaier had moved up to second overall, 2:07 down on Van Vleuten, after stage 5. With the world champion claiming another stage win on stage 6, she now has a lead of over three minutes, with Veronica Ewers (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) the new number two.

| Van der Poel reacts to Tour de France relegation

Mathieu van der Poel has defended himself after being relegated and fined for dangerous riding on the run-in to stage 5 of the Tour de France.

The Dutchman propelled his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Philipsen to a second stage win in as many days, with another jaw-dropping lead-out. However, it was soon covered in controversy as the race officials reviewed the finish-straight footage and deemed that Van der Poel had unfairly muscled into Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) as he dragged Philipsen into open road.

Van der Poel was relegated from 16th place to 22nd place and was fined 500 Swiss Francs.

“I am the last person who wants to put someone in danger,” Van der Poel insisted on Sporza’s Vive le Velo podcast. “If there wasn't room, I wouldn't have done it. I don't think I did much wrong.

“I talked to Bini and he thought it wasn't a big deal either. If you look at the last three kilometres, you could take 20 men out of the race. But I saw a gap and then I had to go for it, otherwise, we would have had nothing.”

Van der Poel acknowledged that others would not share his opinion, and one of them appears to be his old foe, Wout van Aert. The Jumbo-Visma rider, himself squeezed against the barriers by Philipsen the previous day in an incident that went unpunished, was happy to see the officials taking action, as they had against a couple of riders on the stage 2 run-in.

“We need to think about how we can make it safer. But I certainly think it's good that rider behaviour is penalised if necessary," Van Aert said.

| Cavendish loses ally as Sánchez out of Tour de France

Mark Cavendish’s hopes of a record-equalling 35th Tour de France stage win have taken a blow, with the loss of key Astana Qazaqstan teammate Luis León Sánchez.

Sánchez, who plays a key role in guiding Cavendish through the hectic wind-up to sprint finishes, before the true lead-out begins, crashed heavily on the run-in on stage 4.

The veteran Spaniard was seen clutching his left shoulder on the motor racing circuit that hosted Tuesday’s finish in Nogaro, and hospital exams later confirmed suspicions of that most common of cycling injuries: a broken collarbone.

Sánchez, who was riding his 30th Grand Tour, is travelling home to Spain on Wednesday, where he will have to undergo an operation.

Cavendish finished 5th on stage 4, having placed 6th on stage 5. “I’m just worried about Luis,” he said in the direct aftermath of Tuesday’s finish, explaining that he hasn’t yet found the daylight to contest the victory but evincing confidence that he has the shape to do so if the opportunity presents itself.