Tour de France 2023 – Stage 19 [FULL STAGE]

July 21, 2023

Tour de France 2023 – Stage 19 – Moirans-en-Montagne – Poligny : 172,8 km

For three weeks of the year cycling fans put their bikes away and root themselves to their sofas, eyes fixed on their television screens as they watch one of the greatest races of the season play out in front of them. We are, of course, talking about the Tour de France – the one bicycle race that nearly everyone on planet Earth has heard of. This three-week race is regarded by many as one of the toughest sporting events in the world. With 21 gruelling stages to complete over a 23-day period, adding up to around 3,500km in total, the Tour de France is a race of pure endurance. The winner isn’t necessarily the strongest rider, but rather the one who can survive the most suffering, day after day. The 2023 route, which is due to start in the Basque Country, Spain, and finish in Paris, France, features three leg-breaking summit finishes, one individual time trial and a high-mountain stage that will see the riders take on no less than 5,200m of climbing. The rest of the route is made up of flat and hilly stages, offering the sprinters, puncheurs and escape artists – those who aren’t as focussed on the famous yellow jersey – plenty of opportunities to take a career-defining stage win.

Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) denied Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) a second win at the 2023 Tour de France in an astounding photo-finish sprint from a three-man breakaway in Poligny on stage 19 – following a day of fragmented attacks across the field.

The two riders outsprinted Ben O’Connor (AG2R La Citroën) following an animated chase between a series of breakaway groups in the final 20km of the 172.8km stage, with Jasper Philipsen winning the sprint for fourth place from a pursuing group containing teammate Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) amongst others.

The stage was heavily anticipated to be an orderly transition stage, no doubt fuelled by tensions in the sprint teams after a disastrous loss to the breakaway on stage 18, which was won by Asgreen. Today he came painfully close to a second Tour stage win in a row.

The main peloton rolled in more than 10 minutes behind the lead breakaway, with the 30-riders who had found their way into the lead breakaway group finishing in splinter groups between the two.

HOW IT UNFOLDED
The peloton set out from Moirans-en-Montagne for 172.8 kilometres of relatively flat riding and milder temperatures than the peloton has suffered through, with successive days near 40 degrees Celsius in the midst of France’s savage heatwave.

Eddy Merckx himself was the star guest at the race start, as he posed with polka dot jersey wearer Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and yellow jersey wearer Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma).

As the peloton rolled out of the neutralised zone, anticipations of an orderly sprint stage were torn into pieces as attacks came in quick succession. Chief among them was the combativity award winner of stage 18, Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny).

Indeed, Campenaerts began the stage with a score to settle. On stage 18 the startlingly small margin of the unlikely breakaway win was one of almost historic rarity on a sprint stage. There, despite driving the breakaway, Campanaerts sacrificed himself as lead-out man for teammate Pascal Eekhoorn, but both were bested by Soudal-QuickStep’s Kasper Asgreen.

His initial attack was pulled back, with EF Education-Easypost doing the lion’s share of the chasing, while a series of other abortive strikes followed, including a solo breakaway from Peter Sagan lasting the best part of 2km.

It was at the 116km mark that a move at the front of the peloton eventually stuck. The attack contained nine riders – Nils Politt (Bora–Hansgrohe), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Campenaerts, Georg Zimmermann (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty), Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep), Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek).

With 100km remaining, the break had over a minute to the peloton, while a considerable group of dropped riders formed an effective second peloton on the road.

Only 10km later, Politt lost his spot in the breakaway after suffering a broken chain, having rolled through three different Shimano neutral service bikes in an attempt to regain touch with the breakaway.

The breakaway never managed to ride clear of that one-minute margin, and 30km later, a split from the main peloton driven by Alpecin-Deceuninck duo Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel took off from the front of the main peloton caught the initial 10-man break.

The split, driven by a number of Uno-X riders alongside Van der Poel, along with that initial 10-man break, formed a new breakaway group totalling 36 riders from across the major teams. Its riders included Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), Pedersen, Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Ion Izaguirre (Cofidis) among a host of others. The gap to the main peloton was 90 seconds.

Pedersen attacked at the intermediate sprint in Ney, beating Philipsen to some green jersey points, but stealing only three over the Belgian in the green jersey didn’t do much to threaten his 137-point lead.

Campenaerts’ business with the stage was far from done, though, and with 60km remaining Campenaerts attacked along with Simon Clarke (Israel Premier-Tech) and the two stretched out to a lead of around 40 seconds, a margin that contracted and stretched over the next 20km, but never afforded them a big enough gap to break free of the main breakaway’s gaze.

With 32km to go, Campenaerts lost Clarke to a leg cramp, and he rode on alone. However, a considerable attack came from Asgreen, O’Connor and Mohorič, which soon swallowed up a flailing Campenaerts and stretched out 30 seconds over the sizeable Philipsen chase group. The main peloton containing Vingegaard and the major GC contenders was over seven minutes down entering the final 25km, and it was now certain that the stage winner would come from the lead three-man break or from this main chase group.

That didn’t stop attacks and splits from this chase group, with Pidcock and Laporte then Zimmermann and Ion Izagirre all trying to break clear of the main chase – no doubt conscious that with both Groenewegen and Philipsen in the main chase, their prospects for a sprint win would be slim to none.

With 15km remaining, the chase group saw dramatic fragmentation as Zimmermann, Bettiol, Trentin and Van der Poel drove a savage attack on the front and split the field into pursuing groups.

Pedersen, Pidcock, Philipsen, Laporte, Mezgec joined that four-man pursuit – bolstering it considerably – and the aggression at the front of the race saw a full minute put between Asgreen, O’Connor and Mohorič and the remnants of the main chase group, containing Groenewegen.

Entering the final 5km, we were set for a game of cat and mouse between the two attacking groups.

Philipsen’s group of pursuers couldn’t coordinate their chase quite tightly enough, and Mohorič and Asgreen rode into the final set up for a three-way sprint battle.

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