Here’s Jeremy Whittle’s report from Châteauroux.
The yellow jersey, Mathieu van der Poel, speaks.
Yes, I was ok, the start was hard, a dangerous group broke away. And it was pretty ok to the finish line. I didn’t what I could during the lead-out and I lost the wheel on the last corner. But Cav is the fastest man. We will keep trying. It’s going to be a hard velo, I think tomorrow. We will see what happens.
The green jersey, points classification
1. Mark Cavendish (GBR) Deceuninck - Quick-Step 148
2. Jasper Philipsen (BEL) Alpecin - Fenix 102
3. Nacer Bouhanni (FRA) Team Arkéa - Samsic 99
4. Michael Matthews (AUS) Team BikeExchange 96
5. Julian Alaphilippe (FRA) Deceuninck - Quick-Step 84
6. Mathieu van der Poel (NED) Alpecin - Fenix 78
7. Peter Sagan (SVK) BORA - hansgrohe 72
8. Sonny Colbrelli (ITA) Bahrain Victorious 66
9. Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates 64
10. Tim Merlier (BEL) Alpecin - Fenix 62
11. Arnaud Démare (FRA) Groupama - FDJ 51
12. Primoz Roglic (SLO) Jumbo - Visma 49
13. Michael Mørkøv (DEN) Deceuninck - Quick-Step 41
14. Cees Bol (NED) Team DSM 38
15. Wilco Kelderman (NED) BORA - hansgrohe 34
16. Ide Schelling (NED) BORA - hansgrohe 31
17. Jonas Vingegaard (DEN) Jumbo - Visma
18. Wout van Aert (BEL) Jumbo - Visma 25
19. Bauke Mollema (NED) Trek - Segafredo 22
20. Edward Theuns (BEL) Trek - Segafredo 20
The GC standings, unchanged since yesterday.
1. Mathieu van der Poel (NED) Alpecin - Fenix 20:09:17
2. Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates +8
3. Wout van Aert (BEL) Jumbo - Visma +30
4. Julian Alaphilippe (FRA) Deceuninck - Quick-Step +48
5. Alexey Lutsenko (KAZ) Astana - Premier Tech +1:21
6. Pierre Latour (FRA) TotalEnergies +1:28
7. Rigoberto Urán (COL) EF Education - Nippo +1:29
8. Jonas Vingegaard (DEN) Jumbo - Visma +1:43
9. Richard Carapaz (ECU) INEOS Grenadiers +1:44
10. Primoz Roglic (SLO) Jumbo - Visma +1:48
11. Kasper Asgreen (DEN) Deceuninck - Quick-Step +1:49
12. Geraint Thomas (GBR) INEOS Grenadiers +1:54
13. Wilco Kelderman (NED) BORA - hansgrohe +1:56
14. Enric Mas (ESP) Movistar Team +1:58
15. Bauke Mollema (NED) Trek - Segafredo +2:08
16. Jakob Fuglsang (DEN) Astana - Premier Tech +2:16
17. David Gaudu (FRA) Groupama - FDJ +2:35
18. Nairo Quintana (COL) Team Arkéa - Samsic +2:45
19. Vincenzo Nibali (ITA) Trek - Segafredo +2:55
20. Pello Bilbao (ESP) Bahrain Victorious +3:24
Mark Cavendish speaks.
It was nice, wow. It seems like every time we came here it was different. Ten years since I last won here. Pretty special. And in pretty similar fashojm. We were talking. There’s some many big sprinting teams. You always get swept up by the finish. Why do you bring a full sprint team, and not go for the sprint? As usual the other team shares the work - Alpecin - I wanted a split second longer and I wanted to switch trains. The world champion, Julian Alaphilippe, he buried himself. I am just taking om, I am just buzzing. [On Eddy Merckx] I am not thinking about anything, I just won a stage of the Tour de France. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the 32nd. That’s what people work their whole lives for.
🎙 @MarkCavendish 🇬🇧🇮🇲
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
"J'ai l'impression qu'à chaque fois que l'on arrive à Châteauroux, la ligne est différente. Cela fait 10 ans que j'ai gagné ici pour la dernière fois, c'est très spécial."#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/dpbohmoFf0
Updated
Today's official result
Stage 6 Tours to Châteauroux, 160.6 km. Men’s elite road race. Wind direction: W. Wind speed: 1km/h. Route profile: flat. Finish profile: flat.
Stage winners
1. Mark Cavendish (GBR) Deceuninck - Quick-Step 3:17:36
2. Jasper Philipsen (BEL) Alpecin - Fenix
3. Nacer Bouhanni (FRA) Team Arkéa - Samsic
4. Arnaud Démare (FRA) Groupama - FDJ
5. Peter Sagan (SVK) BORA - hansgrohe
Updated
Philipsen and Bouhani were the two hunting down Cavendish, but they both seemed to cut across each other. Cavendish, as ever, as he has always done, read it beautifully, his only focus getting to the line. That’s number 32, and Eddy Merckx’s 34 stages are in sight, and very possible during this Tour. What an amazing comeback. “I’m in the form of my life,” he can be heard saying to one of his Quickstep team.
They had no answer to Cavendish’s power and reading of the sprint.
🏆 Cav wins again !!!! 🏆
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
🏆 @MarkCavendish s’impose à nouveau !!! 🏆#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/6UlVRqj7eb
Mark Cavendish takes his second stage of Le Tour!
Two lead-outs go at once. Van De Poel tries to lead out his man. Van Aert. Two trains at either side of the road but it’s Cavendish who reads it best, and has the strength to get there!
Updated
1km to go: Cavendish sat well as his team tries to pace him along, Alaphillipe doing much of the work. Van Aert is in there, and dangerous, of Van Der Poel.
2km to go: Quickstep have Cavendish in place as the breakaway is eaten up. Van Der Poel shows briefly but soon drops back into the peloton.
3km to go: That’s it for the escapees, though Kluge has one final dig, and Van Avermaet. One of the Group FDJ riders comes off at the back. It’s Demare’s lead-out man.
4km: The leading pair continue to work together. They have barely exchanged a word in all that time out there together. The gap drops to the ten-second mark. And quickly.
5km to go: They are flying along now and reaching the Châteauroux outskirts. A red house, as Jimi Hendrix once had it. It’s a straight run in, followed by a bend at 2km.
7km to go: Bit of tension out there, and the word is that Wout van Aert may fancy a dig at this one. Can anyone live with his power? The gap closes down to 20 seconds and the time for the breakaway pair is surely now short.
9km to go: Arnaud Demare is in the pack, too, as the teams jockey for position. The break is staying away for now but is visible to the peloton. The gap is 35 seconds, and the chasers are just over the brow of the hill.
1okm to go: Quickstep pushing to the front of the pack to keep the break under a tight leash. The gap edges up again, and then back down again. AG2R get up there too.
15km to go: James Davison gets in touch: “After this week’s racing excitement (some great, some bad) it’s actually great to have a quiet stage where you can concentrate on la France profonde. This is an area I know pretty well and I can think of nowhere I’d rather be right now, with a glass of red to toast the peloton as it passed.”
The same for me, James. I miss being able to go to the French campagne, even though everything is always closed when I do go.
Andrew Mullinder enters the ‘name that break’ competition: “In August 1914, the Siege of Liege was finally broken when the XII Corps brought forward its newly designed Van Abermaet & Kluge 10-inch howitzers.”
By the way, the break has gone out to 40 seconds, which suggests the chasing pack is getting itself together rather than a break for the border that will pay off.
Updated
20km to go: Kluge and Van Avermaert plod on, with the sprint trains sharpening their elbows ahead of the finish. Mark Cavendish is tucked away nicely and safely, with Julian Alaphilippe at close quarters.
25km to go: From the official website of Le Tour, as we build up to the finish.
It’s the fourth stage finish of the Tour de France in Châteauroux. Since Mario Cipollini imposed himself in 1998, Mark Cavendish is unbeaten on the avenue de La Châtre. He won his first ever stage of the Tour de France in Châteauroux in 2008 and repeated his success in 2011, the year he won the green jersey in Paris. He’s actually unbeaten in the department of Indre as he also took the top prize in Issoudun in 2009.
30 km to go: The gap down to 32 seconds, and the road to Châteauroux opens up. It’s been pedestrian, let’s be honest here. But that means we may be in for grandstand finish. Something of a weak crosswind in session at the moment, but nothing that will bring in an echelon.
Updated
40km to go: Paul Griffin is in. “Name the (mini) break, continuity announcer edition: ‘Now on Channel 5, the next episode of Van Avermaet and Kluge. This week, Van Abermaet, the world-weary crime squad detective with a fear of heights, and his sidekick, Kluge the psychic dolphin, are under pressure to sniff out a terrorist cell in the Air Force. So Kruge decides to pose as pilot. But will his disguise work?’
The peloton can see the escapees every time the road straightens out.
45km to go: The gap is now at 35 seconds and will surely not sustain much longer. That means we enter the cat and mouse stage, where lone breakaways are the only threat to the sprint teams and not much of a threat in truth. Meanwhile, the race has gone past the palatial former of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the arch diplomat of the the early 19th century.
What is Talleyrand most famous for now. This quote, per wiki: “On hearing of the death of a Turkish ambassador, Talleyrand is supposed to have said: “I wonder what he meant by that?” More commonly, the quote is attributed to Metternich, the Austrian diplomat, upon Talleyrand’s death in 1838.”
Le Tour, c’est educational. But you all knew that one, right? Château de Valençay, his home, looked lovely, if perhaps heavy on the heating bills.
56km to go: The gap down to just over a minute, and now the intermediate sprint, which takes in a sweeping bend, which may well spell danger. Van Avermaet and Kluge ease along but the sprint teams build up. Cavendish was to the front of the group, which Colbrelli was at the front. Sagan looked to be hampered by Michal Morkov, and there was some discussion in the group that went over the line.
🇧🇪 @GregVanAvermaet is the first at the intermediate sprint.
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
🇧🇪 @GregVanAvermaet passe en tête au sprint intermédiaire devant 🇩🇪@kluge_roger#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/W6lCsReXdZ
Updated
65km to go: The gap to that not particularly dynamic duo of Greg Van Avermaet and Roger Kluge is at 1’ 20”, though on ITV’s coverage Chris Boardman suggests they will have a dig together eventually and are currently staying cool to keep the peloton under wraps. It seems plausible enough.
70km to go: As we await some action, here’s an archive interview with Mark Cavendish from 2016.
I met my wife Peta [an ex-Page 3 model and now food columnist for the Sun] on Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles and our first date was at Ago restaurant on Melrose Avenue. Ago is owned by Robert De Niro and chef Agostino Sciandri, whose son Max won us a [cycling] bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games. He taught me how to cook Tuscan food. I started getting into decent food after I got a house in Tuscany, near the British cycling academy’s training base. For a cyclist, the area is incredible, with the flats of the basin of Florence, the heights of the Apennines and the small climbs around Chianti. The locals like cyclists but best of all is their food – “peasant food” with simple ingredients, really well made, with heart but without extravagance. I love raw vegetables with just a little oil and vinegar.
80km to go: It’s not a thriller so far, but the scenery is world-beating. That’s the chateau in which Leonardo did some of his finest work.
🏰 @ChateauAmboise + 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️ = 😍#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/lZaAIPXXoy
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
90km to go: Geoff Walker gets in touch: “I don’t know who Simon Thomas is, but he is taking his life and liberty into his hands. It’s illegal to swim in the River Loire over its whole length. Dangerous currents and pollution.”
The gap is 1’ 30” to the breakaway duo.
100km to go: Cavendish latest. He’s sat in the middle of the field, comfortably enough. This already looks like it’s going to the sprint.
105km to go: The breakaway pair have not exactly put the hammer down, and Tim Declercq of Quickstep is leading the peloton in his usual fashion. The Tractor is in full working order, dragging them all along. The gap is under two minutes, and dropping.
Simon Thomas gets in touch: “KM0 this morning was right by a lovely little hotel and restaurant outside Tours called Les Hautes Roches. I swam across the Loire from there, which may not be up with Lord Byron swimming across the Hellespont but it felt pretty heroic to me. And he didn’t have to swim back, like I did.”
115km to: Kluge and Van Avermaet hook up, 2’ 13” ahead of the field, which soon starts to drop. The body language between them is not exactly wonderful. Expect them to use the elbow to tell each other when to do the pacing.
120km to go: Van Avermaet has 2’ 10” on the field. He’s going for it.
Robin Hazelhurst gets in touch: “I’d guess Asgreen and maybe say Rickaert have been told not to work too much for the break so that Cav and Melier can have their day. Imagine the DQS dinner table if Asgreen tows Van Avermaet to the line while Cav leads home the trailing peloton.”
125km to go: Van Avermaet decides to go it alone as his former compadres are pulled back into the peloton. That word - “peloton” - trying to think of that word without invoking Claire in Manchester is hard. Van Avermaet opens up a gap, and Roger Kluge is his only chaser at about 20 seconds back. This would be a heroic and unlikely win for the Olympic champion.
130km to go: They have passed Amboise, where Leonardo Da Vinci painted some of the Mona Lisa, and designed the submarine and the helicopter. He was the Wilf Lunn of his day, and his tomb is in Amboise. As the breakaway group goes over a lumpy section of the town’s environs, the gap dwindles ever more.
135km to go: Deep discussions in this group over who is going to take up the pace. The gap is fading and the words of the team cars are probably ringing in their ears. Van Avermaet takes it up but it’s all a bit half-hearted.
140km to go: The breakaway has split into two now. Zimmerman, Politt, Van Avermaet and De Gendt pull away, but then Skujins, Asgreen and Rickaert come back on, as does Kragh Andersen. That doesn’t suggest much unity, and the gap to the peloton drops to 45 seconds.
145km to go: A list of that breakaway group. Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R), Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Fenix), Kasper Asgreen (DQS), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo), Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Soren Kragh Andersen (DSM), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Georg Zimmermann (Intermarché), with Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) in between them and the peloton. That’s an all-star line-up of the type you might see in a classic. The legs are pumping hard in the peloton.
Had battle for the break! @GroupamaFDJ & @Arkea_Samsic are not happy with a group of attackers featuring the likes of @kraghsoren, @GregVanAvermaet, @k_asgreen...#TDF2021 #TDFdata pic.twitter.com/A1tN1XVQae
— letourdata (@letourdata) July 1, 2021
Updated
150km to go: An eight-man breakaway, and it looks a strong one, including 2016 Olympic gold Greg Van Avermaet. A gap of a minute opened up to the main field. It looks like it will be a hard day for all concerned.
160km to go: And away we go...and off go the breakaways. The weather is lovely, by the way.
And they’re off on the départ fictif as they set off round the streets of Tours. Cavendish in green, Pogacar in white, Van Der Poel yellow and Schelling in polka.
Here’s the GC standings.
1. Mathieu van der Poel (Ned) Alpecin-Fenix, in 16-51-41
2. Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates, at 8 seconds
3. Wout van Aert (Bel) Team Jumbo-Visma, at 30 seconds
4. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Deceuninck - Quick-Step, at 48 seconds
5. Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) Astana-Premier Tech, at 1 minute 21 seconds
6. Pierre Latour (Fra) Team TotalEnergies, at 1 minute 28 seconds
7. Rigoberto Urán (Col) EF Education-Nippo, at 1 minute 29 seconds
8. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Team Jumbo-Visma, at 1 minute 43 seconds
9. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers, at 1 minute 44 seconds
10. Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma, at 1 minue 48 seconds
Others:
12. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers, at 1 minute 54 seconds
13. Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Bora-Hansgrohe, at 1 minute 56 seconds
14. Enric Mas (Esp) Movistar, at 1 minute 58 seconds
17. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, at 2 minutes 35 seconds
18. Nairo Quintana (Col) Arkéa-Samsic, at 2 minutes 45 seconds
The main man is enjoying himself, and seems happy not to be in yellow.
One of the sprinters Mark Cavendish will have to look out for.
🎙🇫🇷 @ArnaudDemare
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
"A beautiful finish in Châteauroux, we did the recce.
And today, we go for it!"#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/qZymW0J8Je
Some quotes from the Team Ineos Grenadiers camp, courtesy of Cycling News. It looks like Richard Carapaz will be their GC contender with G Thomas crocked and struggling in the time trial, Tao Geoghegan Hart losing time and Richie Porte also off the pace.
Carapaz is 96 seconds off Tadej Pogacar so his hopes seem faint enough but nevertheless:
The truth is we’re very happy after the time trial, it was not an easy one, but we did it as well as possible. We’re here, we’re in the fight, and I think we have to take away the positive factors about it all. For me, things are looking up and we’ve got some very tough stages to come We’ve got a good team, and that’s in our favour, we’re still feeling positive and we’re thinking about winning the race.
One category 4 climb, one intermediate sprint, one final sprint.
🚲 Stage 6 / Étape 6 🚲
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 1, 2021
🚩 @villedetours
🏁 @Chateauroux36
📏 160,6km
⏰ 13:55 CEST > 17:34 CET⠀
⛰️ 1x4️⃣c
💚 km104,3#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/dDkbYOOLf8
Covid news: there is none, thankfully.
Covid tests on the #TDF2021 are negative
— Julien Prétot (@julienpretotRTR) July 1, 2021
Lawsuit withdrawn against pile-up spectator
Updated
Jeremy Whittle reported from Wednesday’s time trial.
Chris Froome, like many in the peloton, is still the nursing the aftermath of his high-speed fall on the road to Landernau: “I’ve got a lot of dark bruising on my upper leg, and my chest, but I don’t think I’m the only one in the peloton with aches and pains. A lot of guys have come down these last few days and looking around, I can’t ever remember seeing so many injured riders. It’s pretty scary.”
Preamble
After Wednesday’s time trial, it looks like Tadej Pogacar’s Tour, and the rest just living in it, but the beauty of the Tour de France is what else is up for grabs. Mark Cavendish’s sprint win on Tuesday was a wonderful sporting moment, and one celebrated across the peloton. As David Millar said in the ITV commentary, there is no doubt that ‘Cav’ is the greatest sprinter the Tour has ever seen, but if Tuesday was something of a last of the summer wine, then the finish in Châteauroux is a return to where it all began, the first of his 31 stage wins. Can he get to 32, just two short of Eddy Merckx’s all-time record? Big Ed’s wins included time trials, too, and mountain stages, suggesting just how far ahead of the rest of history’s sprinters he is. André Darrigade, who won 22 stages from 1953 to 1961, is next best of the sprinters, with Cav between Bernard Hinault on 28 and Merckx. Deceuninck–Quick-Step will try their level best to get him there, and with the rest of the sprinters not in the rudest health this year, it’s entirely possible they do so.
