Like wasps around a broken pot of jam, the throng around the yellow jersey waxes on a daily basis, steadily becoming more menacing. Fabio Aru managed to hold the maillot jaune on a spectacular Bastille Day stage which went to Warren Barguil – the first Frenchman to win on the Fête Nationale in 12 years – but the Italian looks a provisional tenant at best.
His Astana team were blown away, while Team Sky played a classic pincer move after losing the yellow jersey on Thursday, pushing Mikel Landa up the standings into a threatening fifth overall. Ireland’s Daniel Martin also closed in, albeit by only a few seconds.
Behind Aru, Froome still lurks at 6sec, Romain Bardet remains at 25sec and Rigoberto Uran – having had a 20-second penalty for alleged irregular feeding the previous day overturned – stands at 35sec. With no change in the top four, and given his team were completely absent from the pointy end of the race, Aru could look back on this stage with the sense of a job well done, but there is no sense that his task will get much easier.
Something happened here which bodes well for the Tour as a competition, if perhaps not so happily for Aru: a resurrection of sorts for Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador. The Colombian is far from out of the reckoning, having regained much of what he lost at Peyragudes to move to 2min 7sec behind, while Contador cannot win this Tour but is setting himself up as a potential joker, a trouble-fête who will create chaos at any opportunity.
The 2007 and 2009 Tour winner has at most a year left in him and “enjoyed himself”, as he put it, with a move reminiscent of his long-range attack over the Galibier in 2011. He sprang out of the peloton on the lower slopes of the first climb, the Col de Latrape, and was immediately joined by Landa. The Spaniard had been at loggerheads with Team Sky the previous day and the obvious solution was to give him his head, simultaneously taking the pressure off Froome and turning up the heat on Aru.
After years in which the sight of a phalanx of Team Sky riders dragging Froome along has become a Tour staple, to see a yellow jersey fending for himself for much of a stage was disconcerting. Aru had no team-mates to help him, and – as expected – Jakob Fuglsang abandoned during the stage. Luckily for him, the race leader found others willing to make the pace a little: Primoz Roglic of LottoNL-Jumbo, UAE’s Kristijan Durasek, both defending team-mates in the top 10.
Behind Aru, Froome still lurks at 6sec, Romain Bardet remains at 25sec and Rigoberto Uran – having had a 20-second penalty for alleged irregular feeding the previous day overturned – stands at 35sec. With no change in the top four, and given his team were completely absent from the pointy end of the race, Aru could look back on this stage with the sense of a job well done, but there is no sense that his task will get much easier.
Something happened here which bodes well for the Tour as a competition, if perhaps not so happily for Aru: a resurrection of sorts for Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador. The Colombian is far from out of the reckoning, having regained much of what he lost at Peyragudes to move to 2min 7sec behind, while Contador cannot win this Tour but is setting himself up as a potential joker, a trouble-fête who will create chaos at any opportunity.
The 2007 and 2009 Tour winner has at most a year left in him and “enjoyed himself”, as he put it, with a move reminiscent of his long-range attack over the Galibier in 2011. He sprang out of the peloton on the lower slopes of the first climb, the Col de Latrape, and was immediately joined by Landa. The Spaniard had been at loggerheads with Team Sky the previous day and the obvious solution was to give him his head, simultaneously taking the pressure off Froome and turning up the heat on Aru.
After years in which the sight of a phalanx of Team Sky riders dragging Froome along has become a Tour staple, to see a yellow jersey fending for himself for much of a stage was disconcerting. Aru had no team-mates to help him, and – as expected – Jakob Fuglsang abandoned during the stage. Luckily for him, the race leader found others willing to make the pace a little: Primoz Roglic of LottoNL-Jumbo, UAE’s Kristijan Durasek, both defending team-mates in the top 10.
It was Martin who set the pace on the Péguère, but Froome who made an impression, twice testing Aru close to the top.
There was more probing on the descent: first Bardet, then Uran, Martin and finally Simon Yates, with the Briton and the Irishman doing enough to gain a few seconds by the line.
By this time, Barguil was savouring the victory he had thought was his on Sunday, when he had been beaten by Uran by a tyre’s width. Here, the outcome depended on the final 180-degree turn just 150 metres from the line; with an assurance that would have done credit to his fellow Breton Bernard Hinault, Barguil tracked Contador when he headed for the corner, then took the widest line possible, carrying more momentum out of the turn and making sure there was no need for the photofinish.
It has taken Barguil a while to make his mark on the Tour. Like Bardet, he is one of the new wave of French talent, but at 25 he is a year younger than the AG2R leader and after winning two stages of the Vuelta in 2013, his career had stalled a little.
A wave of French success – four stage wins in nine days – will do the Tour nothing but good, as will the overall battle now brewing. Aru’s concern has to be that with a weak team around him and seven riders within 2min 7sec, anything can happen this weekend, particularly on Sunday’s hilly run across the Massif Central.
“Perhaps in the coming days we can play a bit more,” said Froome when asked about Landa’s rise. He will be far from the only one with that thought.
Stage 13 results
1) Warren Barguil (Team Sunweb) 2:36:29”. 2) Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) same time. 3) Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) ST. 4) Mikel Landa (Team Sky) +2”. 5) Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) +1:39”. 6) Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors). 7) Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) +1:48”. 8) Chris Froome (Team Sky) ST. 9) Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) ST. 10) Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) ST.
General classification after stage 13
1) Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) 55:30:06”. 2) Chris Froome (Team Sky) +6”. 3) Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) +25”. 4) Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) +35”. 5) Mikel Landa (Team Sky) +1:09”. 6) Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors) +1:32”. 7) Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) +2:04”. 8) Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) +2:07”. 9) Louis Meintjes (UAE Team Emirates) +4:51”. 10) Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) +5:22”.
(Guardian service)
