While it was business as usual for Marcel Kittel, who took his fifth stage win of the Tour, this was a bitter day for Jakob Fuglsang, the Dane who lies fifth overall behind the leader Chris Froome. The winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné crashed at the feeding station and was left with minor fractures to his left wrist and elbow. He will start Thursday’s stage in the Pyrenees but his future in the race could well be compromised.
On Monday’s rest day, the 32-year-old had described how he hoped that together he and his team-mate Fabio Aru, who is second overall, might use their collective strength to put Froome on the ropes. On Wednesday evening, a statement from the Astana team said Fuglsang had sustained small fractures to his left scaphoid, which is located where the wrist and hand meet, and the head of the radius of his left elbow. Another Astana member, Dario Cataldo, quit the race after the same crash having also broken his left scaphoid.
A doctor of many years’ experience in professional cycling said Fuglsang would be unlikely to get much further in the race. An elbow injury of this type, he said, “is usually treated in a sling and gently mobilised”. The doctor added: “There is a risk of complication if a scaphoid injury is not treated correctly.”
There have been an uncanny number of high-profile crash victims at the Tour de France this year, including favourites for the overall standings such as Richie Porte, who went home on Sunday with fractures to a collarbone and pelvis, and Spain’s Alejandro Valverde, who broke a kneecap on day one. The former yellow jersey holder Geraint Thomas and the star sprinter Mark Cavendish have sustained a broken collarbone and shoulder blade respectively. Another faller, albeit less seriously, was Alberto Contador, who fell twice on Sunday and was in the wars again on Wednesday.
As for Kittel, after winning half of the 10 road-race stages in the Tour since the race left Düsseldorf on 2 July, the German is rewriting the record books. To find another rider so dominant at this early point in the race, it is necessary to go back to 1909 when five of the first six stages were won by the Luxembourgeois François Faber, the dominant figure of his generation, whose life and career ended on the western front in the first world war.
Like Cavendish in his pomp, Kittel is making history his own way. What made Cavendish unique was his ability to achieve a high rate of stage wins year in, year out, between 2008 and 2012. Kittel’s achievement in this Tour is one to compare with other great winning streaks of the past: Mario Cipollini’s four Tour stages in a row in 1999, or Freddy Maertens’s five road stages in both 1976 and 1981, although in 1976 Maertens added three time trials to that.
There have been six flat sprint finishes so far, and only one has eluded Kittel. The other fastmen are looking increasingly resigned, although the young Briton Dan McLay posted his best finish so far with fifth place. Having led out the sprint in Bergerac, the Fortuneo-Oscaro rider opted to remain in the shelter this time but he was little nearer to Kittel, reflecting the reality that all the sprinters are scrabbling for whatever crumbs the German drops their way.
Here, the German Kittel could afford the luxury of being able to start his sprint from 10th place, on paper way too far back. Sprinters at this level of superiority – be it Cavendish, Cipollini or other names from the past such as Jean-Paul van Poppel – seem to operate in a different plane of time and space, seemingly able to select which wheel to slot on to: Michael Matthews was Wednesday’s victim. The Australian was following Edvard Boasson Hagen, who led the gallop out, only for Kittel to come sailing past like a clipper overhauling a dinghy, with the Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen coming up fast on his left.
As the peloton headed into Pau, the Pyrenees were hidden in mist rather than looming threateningly but the field know what awaits on Thursday, with the first heavy-duty summit finish of the race at the Peyragudes ski station on one of the Tour’s oldest climbs, the Col de Peyresourde.
On Wednesday, Froome recalled the frustration he felt at being prevented from winning in 2012 because of team orders but said he hoped his legs would feel as good. The stage, he said, has changed since then, with the addition of a finish on the ski station’s altiport runway at a gradient of 20%.
“It’s savage, if someone blows in those few hundred metres there could be big time gaps. There are only two more uphill finishes left in the Tour de France, tomorrow is one so it’s a key stage.”
The other issue is what openings Froome’s challengers can find. The steep slopes will suit Aru and Daniel Martin, while Romain Bardet’s descending skills need little introduction. For Froome’s team, the brief will be obvious: control the race. “The key thing for me is to keep an eye on Fabio Aru, he’s only 18 seconds behind and I want to keep him there until the time trial [in Marseille] so I will stick to him like glue,” Froome said. “Our number one priority is not to allow anyone who has lost time already come back into the game.”
In terms of concentrated climbing, the final 40km of the stage on Thursday are among the toughest of this year’s race, with the hors categorie Port de Balès – 11.7km at an average gradient of 7.7% – followed by a 16km descent to the foot of the Peyresourde, just under 10km at a similar gradient. A 2km descent follows that before the final, steep 2.4km ramp to the finish.
Asked what he thought of what is viewed as the queen of the Pyrenean stages, the L’Étape Reine, Bardet bridled a little. “We had une L’Étape Reine on Sunday, we’ve got one in the Pyrenees, no doubt one in the Alps. There’s nothing but L’Étapes Reine in this Tour. Seriously though, it’s one of those marathon climbing stages that suits me.” Ominously, however, it will also suit the race leader and his team-mates.
In 2012, the first time it was included in the Tour route, this finish saw Froome demonstrate that he was a stronger climber than his nominal leader Bradley Wiggins, who went on to win that Tour. The Peyresourde, meanwhile, is where he attacked to take the psychological whip hand last year. Traditionally, in all his Tour wins, Froome has gained time in the Pyrenees – a significant amount at uphill finishes in 2013 and 2015, somewhat less downhill into Luchon last year – and if he fails to do so at Peyragudes, questions will begin to be asked.
