After two tough days in the Pyrenees, riders returned from the rest day to a pan flat 168.5km. There wasn’t a chance of the day being easy though – with the opportunities for the sprinters dwindling, all of them would be contesting this stage. Starting on the Île d’Oléron and finishing on the Île de Ré, riders would be windswept the whole day. In spite of this though, a small break managed to get ahead of the peloton, building a lead of a little more than a minute. The sprint teams always kept this in check, reducing it as the day went on before being caught with a little less than 100km of the day still to go. This increase in pace caused the bunch to stretch out, even creating some splits on the road, while the fast pace and road furniture led to multiple crashes throughout the day. At the head of the lead group, Peter Sagan took second in the intermediate sprint and with this taken care of, all eyes turned to the finale. Riders first had to contend with roundabouts and street furniture in La Rochelle, before crosswinds saw echelons form as the peloton headed towards the finale on the Île de Ré. BORA-hansgrohe were well represented in the lead group with Lukas Pöstlberger, Daniel Oss, and Felix Grossschartner riding together with Peter as the race entered its final 10km. In the twists and turns before the final straight, Peter was positioned well, four riders back and when the kick started, Peter was up there the entire time and was gaining ground constantly, taking third on the line after a hard effort.
Results
01 S. Bennett 3:35:22
02 C. Ewan +0:00
03 P. Sagan +0:00
From the Finish Line
“It was a stressful day, right from the start everybody was nervous about the wind. We had headwind nearly all of the stage, with crosswind a few times. The speed of the group was high and we had crashes. In the end, we had a pretty messy sprint where Sam Bennett showed he could win the stage and take the green jersey. But we are still halfway through the Tour de France, and there are still opportunities to take the jersey back. Thanks to all my teammates today for staying with me.” – Peter Sagan
“The wind wasn’t as strong as initially feared, especially in the start, although it picked up as we advanced in the stage. There were lots of narrow roads, but also roundabouts and traffic islands in the cities which caused quite a few of crashes but our guys managed to stay out of trouble and avoided any crashes. In the finale we worked for Peter, it worked well in the last kilometres as the guys were always in a good position. In the sprint, Peter was close and fought for victory, so in that aspect, it was a good day. We stayed safe and saw that Peter is getting increasingly stronger in the sprints and hopefully we are on the right track for the next stages. As for Emu, we had decided in the morning that we didn’t have any aspirations for the GC, so he rode calmly, as easy as possible in order to stay out of trouble.” – Enrico Poitschke, Sports Director
