Geraint Thomas slipped further behind the defending Tour de France champion, Tadej Pogacar, as Bob Jungels, riding for the AG2R Citroën team, took his first career stage win after a 50km attack through the climbs of the Swiss Valais and Haute Savoie.
After a day in the mountains, Thomas marked Pogacar, leader of UAE Team Emirates, closely until the final few moments of the stage, when the Slovenian slipped clear with his closest rival Jonas Vingegaard to steal just three seconds on the other contenders.
Slowly but surely, Pogacar and Vingegaard are inching ahead. They are now separated by only 39 seconds while rivals such as Thomas are more than a minute off the race lead. With a pair of monumental climbing stages to come next week, including summit finishes on Alpe d’Huez and the Col du Granon, and the gap to Pogacar widening, Thomas is now on the back foot.
“If there’s a chance to take seconds then why not?” a weary Pogacar said after the stage. “I did my sprint and it was enough to take three seconds.”
Jungels, who endured a lean period in his career before being diagnosed with endofibrosis, a narrowing of the arteries, missed both the 2021 Tour and the Tokyo Olympics due to iliac artery surgery. The 29-year-old Luxembourger’s win will have offered some comfort to a team deflated by the collapse in form of their leader, Ben O’Connor, fourth overall in the 2021 Tour.
“I’m just overwhelmed,” Jungels said of his recovery from surgery. “I know this means a lot for the team. It’s such a relief after many frustrating months and years. It’s taken a long time to recover.”
Jungels was part of a 21-rider breakaway that included several notables, with past Tour stage winners such as Rigoberto Urán, Wout Van Aert, Thibaut Pinot, and Warren Barguil among the group.
But as they wilted in the heat of an Alpine afternoon, Jungels moved clear with the mercurial Pinot, who had crashed twice and been accidentally punched in the face by a soigneur during Saturday’s stage to Lausanne, giving pursuit on the long haul up the Pas de Morgins.
Jungels’ win came on the day that Cofidis became the third team to lose a rider in less than 48 hours after Guillaume Martin, who had been 14th overall, failed a Covid test. Jungels himself had come close to being withdrawn from the peloton before the race began after testing positive for Covid upon his arrival in Copenhagen but was cleared to start by the race doctor, who deemed him “not infectious”.
“Thanks to the team doctor and the doctors of the UCI, I had another test and they could see that I could start the race,” Jungels said. “But it was very close. Luckily I made it and I’m here.” Asked if the sport now had to accept Covid’s presence and no longer withdraw riders, Jungels said it was probably “not the place” for him to answer questions.
“I had no symptoms and I was completely healthy,” he added. “But I’m not a doctor. It’s not up to the riders and this is why we have doctors to take these kind of positions.”
On what one journalist described as a “big day for Covid”, Pogacar, last tested two days ago, said he was keeping his “fingers crossed” for the formal rest-day Covid tests, which began on Sunday evening.
“We take the virus really seriously,” Pogacar said. “We take precautions, we’re alone in the [hotel] room and quite isolated. I hope that most of the bunch will stay safe.”
Ineos Grenadiers’ team manager, Rod Ellingworth, revealed that the Netflix crew following eight teams for a forthcoming documentary series had also suffered Covid positives. On Saturday he had said “some teams are a lot more lax” on hygiene protocols.
“We’ve got Netflix with us all the time. Our Netflix crew was changed because one of them tested positive, during the race,” Ellingworth said. “There are three of them and the sound guy tested positive so they changed them completely because the others were close contacts.”
Clearly concerned by the rash of positive Covid results now emanating from the Tour convoy, the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, reiterated on Sunday afternoon that “the rules introduced over the last two years in the interests of everyone’s health and safety continue to apply. These include the obligation to wear a mask, to maintain sufficient physical distance and to disinfect hands frequently.”
