Cycling is correctly described as an individual sport practised by teams and, while the value of strength in depth is almost always seen in bunch sprints and mountain stages, that is less often the case when an escape fights out a stage finish.
Here, however, the Australian team Orica-BikeExchange placed three men in the successful 14-rider lead group, an exceptionally high ratio. The stage win duly went to their young sprinter Michael Matthews but it was the fruit of sterling work from Daryl Impey and Luke Durbridge.
With the breeze blowing from the north, bringing temperatures redolent of spring in contrast to last week’s heatwave, the finale was worthy of a Classic, with the one-day specialists Peter Sagan, Greg Van Avermaet and Edvald Boasson Hagen crossing the line in Matthews’s wake after the 14 had been whittled down to half a dozen. With the green jersey in his sights, Sagan had worked hardest to ensure the escape succeeded but he was outnumbered at the finish, although he did relieve Mark Cavendish at the top of the points standings.
It was Sagan who made the initial push that split the escape group 25 kilometres out but the world champion was unable to dislodge any of the Orica riders, which left him with a virtually impossible task. Durbridge rode hard to make sure the fracture persisted, with danger men such as Vincenzo Nibali, Steve Cummings and Tony Gallopin left behind. Towards the top of the final climb above the finish Impey attacked time after time, leaving Sagan with only one option: to respond.
It was a classic tactic to soften up the best sprinter and Sagan was trapped in textbook style. If he let Impey escape the victory would be gone for sure whereas, if he held the group together, there was at least the remote chance one of the other riders would get in Matthews’s way as the finish beckoned. What happened in the final rush for the line was almost inevitable, however: Van Avermaet broke first, followed by Boasson Hagen, with Matthews biding his time before making his effort.
For the 25-year-old from Canberra, there was some measure of revenge over Sagan, who took the world title ahead of him last September in Richmond, Virginia. Matthews was nicknamed “Bling” early in his career because of his love of jewellery but this was far from a random smash and grab, more a clinically executed heist at the world champion’s expense. It was vindication for Matthews as well.
The 2010 under-23 world champion said this day had been three years in the making; he was first tipped as a Tour stage winner when he took a hilly stage in the 2014 Giro d’Italia. He was ruled out of the Tour that year after a crash shortly before the start in Yorkshire and last year he fell on stage three, finishing the race with four broken ribs. Another pile-up cost him dear in the Milan-San Remo, his target for this spring, while he noted he had fallen twice last week, sending his morale to rock-bottom before his wife Kat gave him a pep talk on the rest day.
The 14-man break formed over the initial ascent, the Port d’Envalira, and on the lengthy descent through the customs post into France, which was initially barely visible in the thick mist that swirled across the mountain slopes. The massive pass between Andorra and Ax-les-Thermes was the highest point in the Tour, 2,400m above sea level, and on the way up Chris Froome’s Team Sky had to respond to a move from Alejandro Valverde. Nairo Quintana’s aging team-mate, who is lying 10th overall, has clearly been allotted the task of ensuring Sky cannot sit back; he made a similar early move en route to Andorra on Sunday, but Froome’s team mates were again alert to the danger.
The pressure was probably felt more at the back of the race, where the early pace meant all but the 30 or so who managed to keep in touch with Froome and Quintana faced a desperate task in regaining contact with the front of the race. That in turn favoured the 14 when they came together at the foot of the descent, when, rather than chase the escapees, the elite group around Froome opted to wait for the race’s more solid citizens – all the sprinters and their domestiques – who had crossed the border six minutes behind. That hiatus enabled the escape to carve out a margin that guaranteed they would not be seen again, in spite of brief chasing efforts by teams who had missed out on the move: Katyusha and IAM Cycling.
The move was what the French term une échappe royale – a royal escape – because of the illustrious pedigrees of its members: the reigning world champion, Sagan, a former world champion in Rui Costa of Portugal, a Tour, Giro and Vuelta winner in Nibali, and two men who had already made their mark on this race, Cummings and Van Avermaet.
Cummings had Boasson Hagen for company – the Norwegian’s extensive record includes a welter of short stage races and one-dayers, plus two Tour stages; Van Avermaet had his domestique Damiano Caruso and there was a trio of Frenchmen, all former Tour stage winners – Samuel Dumoulin, Sylvain Chavanel and Gallopin. Team Sky placed a rider in the move, Mikel Landa, who held a watching brief for Froome, balanced by one from Quintana’s Movistar team – Gorka Izaguirre – but it was Orica-BikeExchange who held the trump cards.
There are no major climbs on Wednesday en route to Montpellier, where a mass sprint is expected with Cavendish, André Greipel and company to the fore, plus, perhaps, the young Briton Dan McLay. However, a 20mph wind is forecast from the north-west, blowing favourably for the 162.5km. That will at least ensure a high speed; at worst, if the tramontane turns to hit their shoulders, it could tear the peloton to pieces.
