After finishing in second place on the opening stage of the Tour de France, Briton Simon Yates came agonisingly close to taking the victory once again today, as the Queen stage ended with a nail-biting and tense chase into Courchevel.
After a gutsy ride, the Team Jayco AlUla rider eventually crossed the line for second place behind the solo leader Gall, after giving it his all to try and claim the third Tour de France stage win of his career. The 30-year-old subsequently climbed back up the general classification to fifth place but with the stage victory the squad’s target of the day.
The Australian outfit set out with the plan of getting Yates into the break of the day, and despite the best efforts from Jumbo-Visma to control the start of the stage, the British climber eventually made it into a large group of 34 riders alongside teammates Lawson Craddock and Chris Harper.
Craddock powered the break along for the majority of the stage until the breakaway reached the lower slopes of the Col de la Loze and Harper sprang into action to set a fierce tempo with Yates in his wheel. The pace proved too much for the majority of the remaining escapees before Felix Gall made his move and jumped clear of the vastly reduced group.
Yates and Harper didn’t panic, with the latter continuing to set a strong rhythm before swinging over and leaving it to his teammate to chase the lone leader. A tense battle then ensued as the gap between Yates and Gall continued to fluctuate and the duo ground their way up the punishing gradients.
The deficit fell as low as 15 seconds towards the final drag to the line, but in the end Gall did enough to hold off the hard chasing Yates to take the stage win. It was another bittersweet day for the man from Bury, who despite missing out on a stage win, took the team’s sixth top-five finish of the race and now climbs back up the general classification to fifth overall, just 18-seconds behind fourth place and 1’34” off the podium places with four days remaining.
Simon Yates:
“We really wanted to try and go after the stage today and all the guys have been fantastic, we had Lawson Craddock there driving the breakaway all day and then Chris Harper to raise the pace and pace me in the final and both guys did a spectacular job, so chapeau to them.
You never know how fast those guys [Vingegaard and Pogacar] can come from behind, so that was always in the back of my mind and the rest of the guys. Chris did a fantastic job in the final part of the climb when they really started to raise the pace from behind.
I didn’t know the climb and I don’t know if I’d change anything, but I was very wary of the altitude, so I tried to pace myself and go from there. I think I did a good ride, chapeau to Felix Gall, it was a great ride by him and I’m pretty happy with my ride, it’s a shame it couldn’t be a win, but that’s how it goes.”
