Before any cycling race begins, certain expectations of the cyclists are set, the respective pools of favorites are written. And when the race, in this case, is over, it’s time to evaluate how things went, of the cyclists who fulfilled what was expected of them and those who didn’t. These are some of the failures seen in the 110th edition of the Tour de France.
1
MIKEL LANDA
This is not the Mikel Landa Tour. The alavés did not star at any time in the race. He himself recognized that he was not well and that things were not working for him, he hoped to turn the tables, but this change of situation did not occur and the man from Alava signed one of his darkest performances in the Tour and in a great three-week cycling tour. The Bahrain-Victorius rider, whose contract expires this season, finished 19th.
2
MOVISTAR TEAM
It’s true that it’s not easy to recover from the blow of losing your team leader, Enric Mas, in the first change, and then he loses units as the stages go by. Only Jorgenson is the star of several stages and is close to victory -400 meters he is away from taking one of Matteo Jorgenson in the Puy de Dôme-, but even if they are in the frame, one more thing has to be asked of the telephone team, whose race is more aggressive, that they enter some of their members in these closing Tourists in the closing competitions. The 37th place of the best classified overall, Gorka Izagirre, is the worst best position of a cyclist of the Eusebio Unzué structure in Paris since 1987, when under the name Reynolds-Seur his best rider was the Frenchman Marc Gómez, 79th.
3
DAVID GAUDU
Last year the Frenchman was on the doorstep of the podium at the Tour, but this year he hasn’t come close. He would finish the Tour de France in ninth position, more than 23 minutes behind the winner, the Danish Jonas Vingegaard, but at least he would have the honor of finishing as the first Frenchman in the race, ahead of his compatriots Guillaume Martin and Thibaut Pinot.
4
JULIAN ALAPHILIPPE
The fighting French cyclist tried, he moved in several stages, but they turned out to be only flashes. The Saint-Amand-Montrond man lacks legs, has not fought for any stage for any day and has devastating data on his performance. And it is that he has only made one top10 in the tenth stage, which is 32 seconds behind Pello Bilbao. Gone are those great performances of ‘Loulou’, where it should be noted that he was 5th in 2019 and since 2018 he has won at least one stage in each of the editions in which he participated.
5
JAI HINDLEY
It was difficult to put it in the pools for the podium, but in the run-up to the race we put it. Winner of the 2022 Giro d’Italia, it is true that he was the leader of the race on the day of his victory in Laruns and he flirted with the podium until the 13th stage, but from the day of Mont-Blanc the Tour became very high for him. The final days were long for the Australian and he would eventually finish 7th in the first contact at the Tour de France which could serve as a lesson for future editions.
6
MATHIEU VAN DER POEL
It hurts to write these words, but I expected something more from Mathieu Van der Poel. It is true that some days he is not completely well, that the Tour is not his favorite terrain, but he did not star in any of his trademark ‘rides’ that we like to see so much, it can even be said that he hardly tried and it is true that he has been the best pitcher of his teammate Jasper Philipsen. This is his most successful work in the Tour de France and at least it should be said that he has finished the race, because he did not do it in the previous two years.
7
DYLAN GREENEWEGEN
It is true that Jasper Philipsen has overtaken other sprinters and their chances are not many in this Tour, but the Amsterdam rider, one of the best sprint guarantees, has not achieved success in the Tour this year. It is true that one day he was 5th, another 4th and that in Moulins he was second, but he was left without ‘wet’, which he did last year in the third stage.
8
TOTAL ENERGIES TEAM
Six years of drought for Jean-René Bernaudeau’s team since Lilian Calmejane completed his successful break at the Station des Rousses, under the name Direct Energie. They came close to winning twice this year: at Puy de Dôme (2nd, Pierre Latour) and at Belleville-en-Beaujolais (3rd, Mathieu Burgaudeau). A similar situation for Total Energies can also be said for Arkéa-Samsic, the tenth participation of the Breton team in the Tour de France this year… and tenth without success.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
