September 12, 2020

Tour de France Stage 14 recap: Sunweb are the Tour's bare knuckle brawlers

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Wherever there's white knuckle fun, expect to see a Sunweb rider.

A young, purportedly underpowered squad has been the Tour's most exciting team, animating seemingly every breakaway, climb and bunch sprint. On Saturday, they launched attack after attack on the run-in to Lyon, until 26-year-old Soren Kragh Andersen finally broke loose and time trialed the last three kilometers to the first grand tour stage victory of his career.

Sunweb now has two stage wins and loads of close calls in this year's race. Marc Hirschi, 22, has been their biggest star. He won Stage 12 after finishing second to Julian Alaphilippe on Stage 2, and third on Stage 9 following a Herculean 90-kilometer solo effort at the front of the race. He's been dutifully supported by Andersen, Tiesj Benoot and 36-year-old statesman Nicolas Roche, all of who have been game attackers, too.

The team has only faltered in bunch sprints, where seemingly strong leadouts for 25-year-old Cees Bol have yet to bring a win (though Bol still has third- and second-place finishes this year). Otherwise, it's hard not to love a team that has made the most of the Tour without a true yellow jersey favorite. The team lost Tom Dumoulin to Jumbo-Visma's deep pockets in the offseason, then found its true calling as a motley crew of stage hunters.

Just look out how happy they are.

Andersen won the stage after everybody threw haymakers

Benoot was the first rider on Stage 14 to attempt a stage-winning move, going clear on the Category 4 Côte de la Duchère with approximately 11 kilometers to go. Ten kilometers before that point, the pace of the peloton began to ratchet up as teams fought for control. Jumbo-Visma were aggressors, of course, along with Trek-Segafredo, CCC and Bora-Hansgrohe. But Benoot's move came just as Roche wrested control of the front, providing a springboard for his teammate.

Benoot inspired a series of counterattacks. First Andersen attempted to bridge, but the two Sunweb riders were caught with 7.5k to go. Then Bora's Lennard Kamna went clear and pushed out to a 10-second lead. At the base of the final climb, the Cat 4 Côte de la Croix-Rousse, Lotto Soudal's Thomas de Gendt made his plunge for the line, followed shortly by Alaphilippe, who quickly passed De Gendt and caught Kamna with 4.8k to go.

The trio couldn't stay out, however, and were joined by Hirschi and Greg Van Avermaet. Then wouldn't you know it, Hirschi, the Tour's best descender, attacked on the decline, going away with 4.1k to go.

Somehow Peter Sagan popped up on his wheel. (If reading this is confusing to follow, I promise it really wasn't much easier on television; attacks were happening all over the road.) Then the bunch showed up, and for a moment the front of the stage looked like a GC battle: Primoz Roglic in yellow, with Egan Bernal right on his wheel.

Those 15-ish minutes made up perhaps the most chaotic, pedal-to-the-metal sequence of the Tour thus far, and with 3.2k to go -- with riders spread all over the road, and any sense of cohesion shattered -- Andersen emerged out of the bramble and ... won. No one came close as he widened his gap from five to ten seconds, then a final margin of 15 at the line.

After the stage, Sunweb race coach Matt Winston explained that the team went into the day with no specific plan for Hirschi or Andersen to win. Instead, they just let their riders dictate the race and work off each other.

"Planned" or not, the day went perfectly for the Tour's scrappiest crew.

Bora-Hansgrohe's botched gambit

Sagan finished fourth on the stage, behind Luka Mezgec and Simone Consonni after a heads-up sprint for the line. That's not a bad result in the grand scheme, but it no doubt feels like a disappointment for Bora-Hansgrohe, who clearly had ambitions of getting Sagan a stage win and thrusting him back into the green jersey competition.

They took over the peloton and drove a relentless pace from the day's outset. Sagan attacked with teammate Max Schachmann to take third at the intermediate sprint point behind the breakaway riders of Stefan Kung and Edward Theuns. Current green jersey bearer Sam Bennett was sixth in the sprint, giving Sagan five points back in what had been a 66-point deficit entering the day.

Then at the start of the Category 2 Col du Béal, Bora stepped on the gas again in an attempt to send Bennett off the back. Bennett's Deceuninck-Quick Step teammates surrounded him to try to keep him in contact with the bunch, but the pace proved too heavy.

Bennett was a manageable 1:45 back at the bottom of the day's two early climbs, but the effort wrecked his legs and he officially cracked with 77k left in the stage. He sat up and his teammates patted him on the back; Bennett would give up on challenging Sagan for points on the day and ride out the stage hoping that his Slovak rival didn't take the maximum 50 points on offer at the line.

So the first half of Bora's plan -- break Bennett -- went as scripted. However, it also took a toll: Sagan was left with only Emmanuel Buchmann, Max Schachmann and Kamna as teammates, all riders who wouldn't be much help in a leadout. And as the stage's closing sequence began with approximately 10k to go, Sagan was noticeably unprotected, and went into the closing meters with his face fully in the wind.

Perhaps Sagan's legs were sapped, too. Even during a Tour when he is clearly performing below his standards, he should be faster than sub-sprinters like Mezgec and Consonni.

Instead, he finished a limp (by his standards) fourth, and took only 18 points back on Bennett, who still has a 43-point lead despite Bora's all-day effort on a stage profile seemingly tailored to Sagan's strengths.

That may be it for Sagan. His next best chance to take a big chunk out of Bennett is Stage 19, which is set up for a bunch sprint that Bennett will expect to win. Otherwise, Sagan will have to hope that Bennett gets axed by the time cut in the high mountains.

For the first time ever, we're about to see Sagan lose the green jersey because someone else was better.

Fun and Not-So-Fun

Today's stage biodiversity is a frog-swallowing Grey Heron.

A dog wandered into the road but thankfully we avoided a Marcus Burghardt incident.

Le Tour on Romain Bardet and abandons so far:

Romain Bardet was the 18th rider to pull out since the Grand Départ in Nice. In the past 20 years, only six times there were less than 10% withdrawals at the start of stage 14. The 2020 Tour de France is in the low average of abandons at this stage

Today was a good mask etiquette day.

Grand Colombier and Col de la Biche will be closed to fans tomorrow in light of Covid spikes.

Why Jumbo-Visma gets away with yellow jerseys. Would you that cycling's regulations are contradictory and confusing?

As a former Tour press member, they don't deserve it this nice.

Here's a tractor made of tractors (and also one of the best field art displays of the Tour so far).

Romain Bardet is an iron man: His Tour abandon was just the fifth pro race he has had to quit. He's completed 675 of 680 pro races he's entered.

Bardet also released a statement during the stage saying that he suffered a "small hemorrhage" after his concussion on Stage 13. Evidently his team rushed him to a brain scan after the stage, which raises the question: why let him ride the last 90 kilometers of the stage if you knew he may have suffered brain trauma?

American rider Brent Brookwalter tweeted in response to the news, calling out a "massive failing of race doctors and team management here to let this guy back on his bike," and noting that letting Bardet ride was a risk to other riders as much as himself.

By his own admision, Bardet felt "groggy" during the stage, and still has headaches and nausea. The incident exposed all the ways in which cycling is horribly-equipped to handle head injuries, which cycling writer William Fotheringham enumerates here.

The standings

STAGE 14

1. Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) -- 4hr 28min 10sec
2. Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) -- +15sec
3. Simone Consonni (Cofidis) -- "
4. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) -- "
5. Casper Pedersen (Sunweb) -- "
6. Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) -- "
7. Matteo Trentin (CCC) -- "
8. Oliver Naesen (AG2R La Mondiale) -- "
9. Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-McLaren) -- "
10. Marc Hirschi (Sunweb) -- "

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) — 61hr 03min 00sec
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) -- +44sec
3. Egan Bernal (Ineos) — +59sec
4. Rigoberto Uran (Education First) -- +1min 10sec
5. Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) — +1 min 12sec
6. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) – +1min 31sec
7. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) — +1min 42sec
8. Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) -- +1min 55sec
9. Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) -- +2min 06sec
10. Enric Mas (Movistar) -- +2min 54sec

GREEN JERSEY

1. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) — 262 points
2. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) — 219
3. Matteo Trentin (CCC) — 169
4. Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- 162
5. Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) -- 158

POLKA DOT JERSEY

1. Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R-La Mondiale) — 36 points
2. Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale) -- 31
3. Marc Hirschi (Sunweb) -- 31
4. Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) -- 24
5. Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- 21

Stage 15 preview -- 174.5km from Lyon to Grand Colombier

Stage 15 will begin at 12:50 p.m. local, 6:50 a.m. ET. For those watching from the United States, coverage will begin at 7 a.m. on CNBC (!). (Here’s NBC’s complete broadcast schedule).

Don’t get that channel? You’ll need to pay, sadly. I really like the NBC Sports Gold Cycling Pass, which gives you a commercial-free stream as well as some handy race-tracking whatzits. The much cheaper option, however, is Peacock Premium, which costs $4.99 per month and will reportedly get you access to live coverage of every stage, though presumably with ads and without the whatzits.

If you can’t watch live and want access to replays, it appears Gold is your only way to go.

We're in Queen Stage territory.

Stages 15 kicks off a series of classic Tour battles at high elevation with a mountain top finish atop the menacing Grand Colombier. That finale is preceded by two Category 1 climbs averaging more than 8 percent gradient apiece. There will be massive time gaps at the end of the day.

It seems a foregone conclusion that one of Primoz Roglic or Tadej Pogacar will win the yellow jersey, but Egan Bernal's 59-second deficit is not insurmountable. Profiles like Sunday's suit him best. The Slovenians may have distanced him on a difficult and punchy Stage 13, but that's a different beast from the long, steep set pieces to come. Bernal (as well as his compatriots: Rigoberto Uran in fourth, Nairo Quintana in fifth and Miguel Angel Lopez in sixth) grew up in the extreme altitudes of Colombia, and may have been planning to win the Tour in the third week anyway, just as he did last year by taking the summit of the Col d'Iseran on a neutralized Stage 19.

The Montée de la Selle de Fromentel and the Col de la Biche are fearsome climbs in their own right, but Grand Colombier is the star.

Two mild sections weigh down the overall average gradient. The climb kicks above 12 percent in spots, and finishes on a 10 percent incline at 1,531 meters that could determine final placing and all-important bonus seconds.

After a fun Week 2 filled with sprints and Classics-style courses, we're entering the thick of the yellow jersey battle. Expect the best riders in the world to begin whipping out their most heroic efforts. Outside of Stage 19, every minute of racing from here on out should be GET THE POPCORN fun.

Bake some salé, top it with regional Bugey walnuts and settle in. It's time for the Tour's third and final act to start.