Julian Alapahilippe on Friday extended his overall lead at the Tour de France by winning the 27.2km individual time trial at Pau on Stage 13 to keep the yellow jersey and send his home fans wild.
Geraint Thomas was second, the defending champion dropping 14 seconds on the French overall leader to slip to 1 minute, 26 seconds adrift in the general classification.
“If he carries on like this he’ll win the Tour,” Thomas said at the finish line.
Photo: AFP
The Welshman said that Alaphilippe’s barnstorming ride had taken him by surprise.
“He’s going incredibly well and is certainly the favorite or the one to watch at the moment,” he said. “But there is a long way to go and a lot of hard stages to come.”
Sweat was dripping freely from last year’s champion in the full heat of a baking afternoon in southeastern France.
“I was overheating a bit. It was that last bit that got me, in the last 8km I didn’t have the power I wanted,” he said.
Alaphilippe has been going from strength to strength this season and said he was taking his responsibility to the French fans very seriously.
“I never set off thinking about pulling off this win. Nobody is more surprised than I am,” said the Deceuninck Quick-Step world No. 1 who has lit up the Tour with a series of jaw-dropping attacks.
“I just wanted to keep the jersey, but to win the stage, on this form, is just totally amazing,” the 27-year-old former soldier said.
Friday was the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the yellow jersey, with Eugene Christophe wearing the first in 1919, the Frenchman losing the lead on the penultimate stage.
A hundred years on and Alaphilippe is tantalizing France with belief growing that it can win a first Tour since 1985, when Bernard Hinault clinched his fifth Tour.
After the 80kph descent outside Pau with the sun making a strobe-like flash effect as it flickered through the trees, the packed holiday weekend crowds went wild as they realized Alaphilippe was keeping pace on the narrow hill roads outside the town.
As Alaphilippe made the 18 percent slope ahead of the home straight, the noise was deafening as victory over time-trial specialist Thomas unexpectedly materialized.
Thomas’s Ineos cocaptain Egan Bernal finished 1 minute, 36 seconds off the pace to drop down the rankings and lose his white jersey to Alaphilippe’s teammate Enric Mas, who is now fourth.
France’s Thibaut Pinot lost just 49 seconds and looked relaxed after climbing to seventh in the overall.
“I held back at first and then let the horses go,” he said.
It was also a good day for Steven Kruijswijk, now third in the overall, after finishing sixth on the day.
There had been gasps and cries of horror when Belgian rookie Wout van Aert got caught in the barriers and was taken away in an ambulance. Alaphilippe sent him special wishes from the podium.
Yesterday’s Stage 14 was to be a short 117km run over two category 1 mountains with a summit finish at the fearsome classic Tour de France destination the Tourmalet, which some translate as “bad trip” and which is the highest mountain pass in the Pyrenees.
“It’s going to be difficult on the Tourmalet, but I’m not letting this jersey go easily I can promise you that at least,” Alaphilippe said.
Pinot and his FDJ manager Marc Madiot have also vowed to fight on the Tourmalet to gain revenge for getting left behind in the crosswind at Albi.
“There’s a rage in him, and when the rage is on him, he’s good. Saturday we roll,” Madiot said this week.
“It’s the first real battle,” Pinot said. “And I’ll be there.”
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Francesco Bagnaia yesterday profited from a mistake by rookie Pedro Acosta to win the Japan MotoGP sprint and close the gap on overall championship leader, Jorge Martin. Spaniard Acosta crashed with four laps to go while leading the field at Motegi, allowing defending world champion Bagnaia to take first ahead of Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez. Spain’s Martin finished fourth and saw his overall lead over Italian Bagnaia in the championship standings cut to 15 points. “I am very happy because with these conditions, it’s not very easy to win and gain points,” Bagnaia said after a sprint race that took place under
Naomi Osaka is braced for a “battle” after yesterday setting up a clash with Coco Gauff in the round-of-16 of the China Open, while top seed Aryna Sabalenka also marched on. Osaka defeated 60th-ranked American Katie Volynets 6-3, 6-2 and next faces Gauff in a showdown of former US Open champions in Beijing. World No. 2 Sabalenka swatted aside Ashlyn Krueger 6-2, 6-2 for her 14th consecutive victory and plays another American in 24th-ranked Madison Keys. Looking ahead to the Gauff meeting, four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka said: “She’s very athletic, obviously.” “For me, my strongest traits are being aggressive and also my serve,
RSS