"The Tour de France took an an unexpected turn yesterday when Greg Van Avermaet took advantage of a largely becalmed peloton to extend his overall lead in a stage won in spectacular fashion by France’s Julian Alaphillipe.
ll of which suited Team Sky perfectly. Bradley Wiggins suggested earlier in the week that it might cause problem if second placed Thomas went into yellow too early and although it ruffled a few feathers, tactically the former Tour de France winner was right.
Sky want to quietly shake off a few more contenders before making their bid for yellow and finalising their marching orders and yesterday, operating under the radar, they did that very efficiently
After letting the break go they then rode very hard over the last 30km to put GC contenders Bob Jungels and Robert Uran into trouble and lose more time on Thomas and Chris Froome.
That late effort saw Froome move up to sixth overall despite a mechanical - he has been plagued by them on this Tour - on the gravel section of plateau des Gileres.
“There as a little bit of wacky races going on when I had a puncture on the dirt section and had to swap wheels, “ said a relaxed Froome afterwards.
“Then when I got the spare wheel from my teammate I realised that the wheel was also flat so there was a little bit of a comedy of errors going on there. Thankfully it was quite far from the finish so I was able to get back in.
“I think everyone played it a bit conservatively with the upcoming two stages, but from our point of view I was really happy with how we rode and we had numbers upfront today which was the main thing.”
With the main GC contenders riding tactically and saving themselves for today’s mountain top finish today (wednesday) and another on Thursday at Alpe D’Huez, Van Avermaet decided to take full advantage.
The tough Belgian, the reigning champion and a one day specialist, joined in the early break and although he couldn’t stay with Alaphilippe he did more than enough to maintain his grip on the yellow jersey. In fact he increased his lead over Thomas to two minutes 22 seconds
Van Avermaet knows the jersey is only on loan - his lead will disappear the moment the GC riders decide to really duke it out in the mountains - but with his team leader Richie Porte out of the tour van Avermaet had nothing to lose.
Today’s stage is a short (108.5km) but brutal affair from Albertville to La Rosiere San Bernardo with over 48km of climbing including the Hors Categorie Monte de Bisanne and the Col du Pre before a mountain top finish in La Rosiere where the GC fight is finally expected to kick off in earnest.
It is essentially the same route as stage six of the Criterium du Dauphine last month when Thomas finished second, so the Welshman will be hoping for and expecting another strong showing.
Annemiek van Vleuten followed up on her superb recent victory at the Giro Rosa victory when she chased down Anna van der Breggen on the col de la Colombiere yesterday to win La Course, the one day women's race, run in conjunction with the Tour de France.
Van Vleuten of the Mitchelton Scott team wrapped up the ten-day Tour of Italy on Sunday but showed no sign of fatigue as she fought back right at the death for a stunning win
“It was unbelievable. With 300 meters to go I still thought I would get second and then I saw her dying, “ said Van Vleuten. “I always keep believing and keep on thinking that anything is possible and never give up."""