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Sagan crosses the home stretch and scores 15 points, followed by Shahmann, who is slapped on the back. Trentin survives to cross the next one, while Bennett escapes from that group of nine riders and is sixth in the sprint. Glasses on the way.
The intermediate sprint is interrupted due to the dog crossing the road ahead of both groups.
Schachmann looks tired from his efforts during yesterday’s break, but he is preparing a final conclusion for Sagan ahead of the line. He has a lot of room to play.
159 km to the end
Teuns leads Kung down the intermediate sprint line. They are not interested in glasses, but Sagan is important, and he will be there in three minutes.
Bennett is now in the group of nine riders, which also fell behind on the rise.
Bennett did well when he first held on when Bora opened a break with the rest of the peloton, but he had no legs at the top of the climb.
Bennett appears to have resigned. He has another Bora driver, Daniel Oss, who sits behind the wheel, but Oss prefers to leave and leave him behind, taking as many points as possible.
Sagan, together with Shahman, reaches the top of the ascent and in the process almost throws the German off. Trentin is there and wants to return, but Bennett has been pushed right upstairs.
Bennett grabbed the back of this Bohr train. And they get a break compared to the rest of the group …
Sagan will be hoping that he will be able to score the maximum points in the intermediate sprint, which comes 6 km after the climb, and that Bennett will be dropped and not score any.
Kung leads Teuns over the top, while Bora slams forward and ignites him as he approaches.
Kung and Teuns made an early ascent of Cat 4. It’s only 1 km, but the average slope is 8.4%. Bora will probably try to hurt Bennett.
Yesterday’s performance by Ineos drew criticism from their former director Sean Yates, who wonders why they drove so hard on the penultimate climb and whether Bernal trained properly. Full story at the link below.
Sean Yates raises serious questions about Inneos’ tactics for the Tour de France
171 km to the end
Now everything is calm in the group, and the gap from Kung and Teuns is reduced to 2:15 after 23 km.
Bol and Pedersen are now returning to the peloton. Maybe Bol just wanted to take a big break? I can’t find any explanation for Pedersen.
Kung and Tyuns were confused too. They discuss this before settling down and continuing to work.
Pedersen reaches Bol and they all smile. They seem to be reluctant to get to Kung and Teuns. Strange.
Bol sits down and begins to wait for Pedersen.
Wait, Kasper Pedersen (Sunweb) has other ideas. He jumps out of his backpack and begins his journey. No reaction from other members of the peloton.
Now the pace in the group has slowed down and everything seems to be calming down. Kung, Bol, Teuns go out for 30 seconds.
Here’s how the points ranked ahead of this upcoming intermediate sprint
1.Sam Bennett (Ireland) Deceuninck-Quickstep 252
2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe 186
3 Bryan Coquard (Fra) B&B Hotels-Vital Concept 162
4 Caleb Evan (Australia) Lotto Sudal 155
5 Matteo Trentin (Italy) CCC Team 146
It looks like Matteo Trentin (CCC) wants to get involved. He was interested in intermediate sprints. The leader of the mountain classification Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R) also makes a move, but they were returned.
Kung crosses the top three. However, they only have a few seconds and are still starting.
Kung responds next and gives a big boost from the group.
A couple more riders chase us as we hit a false flat slope. The first correct climb occurs after 31 km.
The attacks from behind had ceased, but had not yet completely subsided. The gap is small.
Edward Theuns (Track-Segafredo) jumps over.
Next comes Sunweb with Sis Ball.
Asgrin looks like he wants to escape here and not just guard Bennett. He moves forward and snaps his elbow. It’s stretched a lot, but there are no gaps at the moment.
Asgrin turns it off again before moving to the front of this group. The peloton is lined up and the accelerations come and go in a frantic start.
Next up is De Gendt Lotto Soudal teammate Roger Kluge, and he was joined by Sergio Higita from EF in a small and big combo.
Thomas De Gendt tries to make a move, but he won’t go anywhere. Total and FDJ look keen again.
Total Direct Energie makes the first move, but is quickly overwhelmed by Kasper Asgrin from Deceuninck-QuickStep. After 38 km there is an intermediate sprint and there is clearly Sam Bennett in the green jersey in QuickStep …
Like this!
François Lemarchand rises from the hatch and waves a yellow flag. Attacks begin immediately.
Today we are heading to Lyon, the finish site of the first ever Tour de France stage, back in 1903. Maurice Garin was the driver who won that day and is honored to be the first ever Tour winner. …
Want to know who will be on hiatus today? We selected several candidates for the remainder of the race. We already saw some of them yesterday, and the first name on this list seems to me to be the best choice for today.
Racers sit behind the director’s car as we ride the last few kilometers of this no-man’s land.
We have details about these restrictions, as well as information about tomorrow’s stage in which the authorities will try to stop any viewer on the final two climbs.
Were off!
Racers drive through large crowds at Clermont-Ferrand. From now on, the start and finish zones will be limited when we return to the red zones of the coronavirus.
Race leader Primoz Roglich on the podium a little earlier
Before we start, why not learn about yesterday’s action?
It was a double whammy: an exciting battle to win the post-breakout stage and a real GC shake-up. Report, results, photos … they are all here…
The pre-stage podium ceremony is already in full swing in Clermont-Ferrand, and riders will leave at 13:05 local time, that is, in just over 10 minutes. 15 minutes before the official start of the stage will follow in the neutral zone. Yesterday was a full tank for a long time, and today we will probably see another active start.
This stage is classified as “flat” in the Tour de France road book. I don’t know how they came to this conclusion. They didn’t indicate the total increase in altitude, but the Col du Beal lifts us 1400 meters, not to mention four other categorized climbs and this long, uncategorized climb. After yesterday’s holiday of ascent to 4400 m, another difficult day came.
Hi @ClermontFd 👋🚩 Departure / Start: 13:05 CET ⏰ # TDF2020 #TDFunited pic.twitter.com/WBOJk8lotZ12 September 2020
Hello and welcome as the Tour de France enters its second weekend. The grand summit at Grande Colombier will finish on Sunday, but first we will have this hilly stage that takes us from Massif Central to Lyon, approaching the high mountains. Breakaway contenders have long noted this.
