As the battle played out for the podium and overall standings up the front of the field on stage 10 of the Tour de France, there was another completely different battle playing out at the back. Sprinters Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny), Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) and their leadout riders may be rivals when they are lining up for a sprint, but on Tuesday they banded together with a combined purpose – making it through before the time cut.
It was no easy start after the rest day, with the mercury soaring above 30° Celsius even before the racing started and a just as hot GC joust right from the beginning of the 167km stage from Vulcania to Issoire. With even top ten GC riders put under pressure, it's no surprise that some of the sprinters fell away from the field early.
“Definitely better ways to spend a birthday than 165km dropped,” said the now 29-year-old Ewan in an Instagram post. “Thanks to the boys for getting me home in time.”
In the end, Ewan crossed the line 34:09 down on stage winner Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) in the final group of six. Two of his teammates Florian Vermeersch and Frederik Frison were also among them, working hard to make sure their sprinter survived another day. So were Soudal-QuickStep teammates Michael Mørkøv and Dries Devenyns who were supporting Jakobsen. There may have been two different team colours in the final group on the road, but on this day a common purpose bound them.
“My gratitude goes out to these 4 men,” Jakobsen said on Instagram of his teammates Mørkøv and Devenyns plus the Lotto-Dstny riders Vermeersch and Frison. “Without the four of you by our side we’d probably be out of the race.”
The terrain and surges of stage 10 may have taken a toll for Jakobsen but then there was also the recovery from the high-speed stage 4 crash that broke his bike into three and left the rider with a lot of missing skin.
When asked how his day went Jakobsen didn’t sugarcoat it.
“Hard. A hard stage. Not a good day,” the rider told Cycling Weekly. “You hope for it to be better but it wasn’t.” Asked why he struggled so much, he added: “I have no idea. I have no explanation. Maybe it’s the crash [but] I hope to be better.”
The impact of the day, and for Jakobsen the recovery from his earlier crash, is likely to become much clearer on Wednesday when Ewan and Jakobsen will once again become rivals instead of allies as they tackle the 179.8km flat stage 11 from Clermont-Ferrand to Moulins.
