Wout Poels sentences the breakaway of the day in the third consecutive alpine stage of the Tour

After the great performance shown by the riders in yesterday's stage, today we lived a more conventional stage, but still entertaining, with a hard fight to get into a breakaway of a very high level. The final fight between the overall riders again left us with a draw result between Pogacar and Vingegaard, who will meet for the very hard time trial on Tuesday, after the second and well-deserved rest day that they will enjoy tomorrow.

Vingegaard and Pogacar in a fierce battle that leaves the outcome of the Tour for the final week

Third consecutive day of mountains in the Alps and, once again, a hard chained that, without being the great giants, it is a question of hard ports and, above all, in a succession that hardly allows rest. In the menu of the day, between Les Gets and Saint Gervais Mont Blanc, 179 km, the cyclists had to overcome 5 punctuated passes, three of them of first category to which, as these days, had to be added at least two or three climbs that could also count.

And, as on the previous two days, the stage started without respite in search of a breakaway that, after the great attrition among the favorites for the general classification yesterday, had a good chance of success today. Mathieu van der Poel was the first to unleash hostilities and, from then on, it was a constant battle.

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On one of these non-scoring climbs, but a full-fledged port, Lutsenko and Alaphilippe went ahead, maintaining a hard battle with the peloton from which the riders kept jumping to form a small group from which the Kazakh and the Frenchman started again to gain a small gap while, in turn, the chasing group seemed to consolidate with 36 units, although without the approval of the peloton.

However, kilometers ahead, there was a major crash in the peloton when a rider got caught up with a spectator who had the unfortunate habit of being more interested in taking a photo with his cell phone than in watching the race and keeping his distance from the riders. This caused the peloton to stop and the breakaway gap grew to 8 minutes.

Reviewing the composition of this group practically included the best of the peloton, including names such as Wout van Aert, Marc Soler, Thibaut Pinot, Mikel Landa, Giulio Ciccone, Mattias Skejmose, Mathieu van der Poel, Michael Woods among others, who managed to catch Lutsenko and Alaphilipe on the descent of the first punctuation point, the Col de la Forclaz.

In what was perhaps the bogeyman of the day, the Col de la Croix Fry, the movements continued with riders like Rui Costa trying to stand out. A pass that was followed, almost without rest, by the Col de Aravis, where Marc Soler attacked, already smelling the summit. Wout van Aert went out in pursuit, giving chase on the descent and, not satisfied with that, the Belgian continued to show his enormous mastery of the bike to continue forward in the company of Wout Poels and Kriss Neilands although the Latvian would suffer a nasty crash shortly after going to catch a can that one of the bikes served him and unbalanced, losing all his options in one stroke.

Meanwhile, behind, Jumbo-Visma had stepped up the pace in the peloton in a quest to tighten up the race to avoid surprises in the final part, leaving the peloton fairly decimated in anticipation of what might happen in the final chain of climbs to the Cote des Amerands and the finish at Sain Gervais Montblanc.

Here Wout Poels and Van Aert arrived in the lead because Marc Soler had been cut off a couple of kilometers before in an area of curves, crossings and traffic circles and he had to row to almost re-enter the Des Amerands climb, moment that Wout Poels, who had disappeared during the whole Tour, chose to attack and leave Van Aert seated.

Marc initially overtook the Belgian in pursuit of Poels, whom he almost caught at the top of this short but very hard climb. But he didn't make it in and on the final climb to Saint Gervais Mont Blanc he ran out of battery and had to give up and was overtaken again by Van Aert who, unsuccessfully, tried to close the gap with Poels who would end up taking the stage victory without any problem.

It was time to look at the peloton that climbed Des Amerands at a lively pace but without movement. In the link section between the two climbs, thanks to a better line, Carlos Rodriguez stood out a few meters, something that only served to fuel the pace of the UAE which causes Hindley to give in at the beginning of the climb.

Rafal Majka pulled away and Adam Yates came in to push, doubling the pace, which also caused Carlos Rodriguez to drop off. Then, a little further ahead there was a strange movement of UAE with the attack of Adam Yates and the stop of Pogacar and Vingegaard in a maneuver that could be interpreted as trying to put the British back in podium positions to put pressure on the Dane of Jumbo-Visma. A break that Carlos Rodriguez was grateful for, as he would get back on the wheel of the two leaders.

In any case, strange tactics when, with 1 kilometer to go, Pogacar was already making his usual dry and intense attack that this time had no problem countering Jonas Vingegaard. Acceleration that served only to neutralize Adam Yates who, in turn, had arrived on the wheel of Marc Soler. A new attack, totally pointless, towards the finish line, cut Yates without Pogacar being able this time to catch any second. In any case, Adam was able to cut 17 seconds with Carlos Rodriguez closing in on a podium position that is getting very expensive.

Stage 15 Classification

1. Wout Poels (Bahrain-Victorious) 4h40’45’’
2. Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) +02’58’’
3. Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) +03’00’’
4. Lawson Craddock (Jayco-AlUla) +03’10’’
5. Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) +03’14’’
6. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) +03’14’’
7. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) +03’32’’
8. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +03’43’’
9. Simon Gugliemi (Arkéa-Samsic) +03’59’’
10. Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic) +04’20’’

Overall Classification

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) 62h34’17’’
2. Tadej Pocagar (UAE Team Emirates) +10’’
3. Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers) +05’21’’
4. Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) +05’40’’
5. Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) +06’38’’
6. Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) +09’16’’
7. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious) +10’11’’
8. Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) +10’48’’
9. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +14’07’’
10. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) +14’18’’