The mountains of the Pyrenees proved the undoing of Remco Evenepoel, who was dropped on the early slopes of the first climb of Tour de France stage 14, the Col du Tourmalet.
Wearing the white jersey of the best young rider, the Soudal Quick-Step rider began falling out of the peloton on the early slopes of the hors category climb.
At first, he had teammates around him as the day's grupetto formed, but he was then seen getting into the team car, his Tour over. With the abandon, Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) moved into the de facto lead of the white jersey competition, and third overall.
The race's arrival in the mountains have been unkind to Evenepoel, raising speculation that he was suffering illness, although this was not confirmed, and he denied this after stage 13. He was dropped on Thursday's stage 12 to Hautacam, though limited his losses well, grinding to seventh place on the stage and retaining his third place on the GC.
Then, on Friday's brutal mountain time trial to Peyragudes, the world champion suffered the ignominy of being caught by his two-minute man, Jonas Vignegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) catching the Belgian in the final metres. He finished 2.48 behind stage winner and yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), though once again he retained his third place, though only by a hair's breadth.
It has been a bad day for abandons. Evenepoel's compatriot, Steff Cras (TotalEnergies) was first to leave the race, climbing off in tears early in the stage.
The other high profile abandon was Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), leaving the race after suffering injuries in a crash with 129km to go.
Having dropped out of the GC, the Danish rider began Saturday’s stage in 19th place, more than 33 minutes behind Pogačar, and has stated he would pursue the mountains classification instead of the GC.
However, the Dane hit a traffic island on the exit to roundabout, apparently hitting a traffic sign, sustaining cuts and other trauma. He attempted to continue the race, was abandoned when well over six minutes off the back, with the Tourmalet looming.
