Tour de France Tour de France 2024, Stage 13: Agen > Pau, 165.3 km

Page 27 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Pretty lumpy stage

Fastest stages in Tour de France since 2005.

#YEARSTAGEAVG. SPEEDDISTANCE
12022Stage 6 | Binche - Longwy49.376219.9
22023Stage 19 | Moirans-en-Montagne - Poligny49.13172.8
32024Stage 13 | Agen - Pau48.821165.3
All of them still behind this:
 
  • Like
Reactions: SHAD0W93
Jasper does it again!

GSS9caLXgAA5GRA
 
Watch it again. Van Gils sees the gap closing, but instead of deaccellerating, he speeds up. You can see from his movement afterwards, that he was prepared for a shoulder contact.
Path is clear. Decides to go. Sees Arkea rider moving over. Anticipates contact because otherwise he is in the barriers.

If this move is cause for punishment I don't know how there can be sprint stages, to be honest.
 
Even when I saw it the first time, Van Gils' move looked reckless. The gap was very small. And he had time to react when he saw the gap shrink even further. If we want less crashes, we can't always be so tolerant towards riders taking exaggerated risks.
The gap was about a third of the width of the road when he went for it to begin with, but he did have time to react when Capiot moved.
 
Path is clear. Decides to go. Sees Arkea rider moving over. Anticipates contact because otherwise he is in the barriers.

If this move is cause for punishment I don't know how there can be sprint stages, to be honest.
It wasn't even important for him to go there, he wasn't going to win the sprint anyway. Risky moves far away from the front should be punished. Notice how certain riders are very rarely causing crashes (Mads Pedersen for instance). Most crashes don't simply occur by bad luck.