Groenewegen sprints to Bastille Day glory – Tour de France
Tour de France 2018
Stage 8
The sprinter became only the third Dutch rider to win back-to-back stages of the Tour de France, coming from deep with a blisteringly fast finish to outstrip favourites Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors).
The finish into Amiens was expected to provide a tough technical test, but the Dutchman safely navigated the final turn and surfed the wheels – timing his final push for the line to perfection. Sagan, who was been guilty of watching Gaviria a little bit too much in the recent stages, opened up his sprint early today and was overhauled by Groenewegen, Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and the Quick-Step rider.
Gaviria’s sprint drew heavy criticism from some commentators, with the Colombian appearing to headbutt Greipel as they jockeyed for the optimal line to the finish. Both he and Greipel were demoted from the sprint by the commissaires after the finish – effectively promoting Sagan to second on the stage.
Following the stage, Greipel took to Twitter to complain about the jury’s decision to relegate him as well as Gaviria, saying “nothing more to say about that decision of the jury-when you do your sprint you keep a line-I have no eyes in my back and I don’t let myself get pushed out of the way from nobody-hard to accept to get already robbed for the stage win and now the commissaries even take away 2nd???”
His compatriot and fellow sprinter Marcel Kittel was also apparently quite unhappy after the stage, but not due to any obvious incident within the sprint.
This second win firmly announces Groenewegen in the top echelon of sprinters, after a misfiring first few days in the race when it was felt that his positioning let him down. John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Alexander Kristoff rounded out the top six over the line, hopping up to third and fourth after the demotion. With Mark Cavendish (Team Dimension Data) just sneaking into the top ten.
A Bastille Day victory for France was not to be, with Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Thomas Boudat (Direct Energie) the best-placed home riders at seventh and eighth respectively.
Away from the battle of the fastmen, the day’s big loser was Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates), who lost 1’16” after coming down in a crash at 15km to go. Despite a whole-team effott to bring him back into contact, the Irishman, whose jersey and shorts were visibly torn and with blood pouring from a gash on his elbow, crossed the line way down on his rivals. It will come as a grave disappointment after he showed such excellent form to win on the Mur de Bretagne. Current leader of the polkadot jersey competition, Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo), was also brought down in the crash – as were Julian Alaphilippe of Quick-Step Floors and Guillaume Martin of Wanty-Groupe Gobert.
Chris Froome (Team Sky), Richie Porte (BMC) and the other overall race favourites finished together safely, so there is little change to the general classification. Greg van Avermaet did contest the bonus seconds sprint to take third, which extends his lead by a single second to 7′ ahead of Geraint Thomas (Team Sky).
A long and largely sedate stage was always likely to end in a sprint finish, and so it proved. Clearly put off by Yann Offredo’s long, fruitless solo escape yesterday, the break only went away after 35km and was led by Laurens Ten Dam (Team Sunweb). The Dutch domestique was then joined by Fabien Grellier (Direct Energie) and Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). After establishing the break, Ten Dam sat up and dropped back to the peloton, leaving his erstwhile companions to the job at hand. While the advantage at one point reached 6’00”, once the intermediate sprint at La Neuve-Grange was concluded, the gap steadily came down under forcing by LottoNL-Jumbo, Lotto Soudal and Quick-Step Floors.
Good work from Jelle Vanendert (Lotto Soudal), Tim Declercq (Quick-Step Floors) and, particularly, Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo) kept the break pegged at an ever-decreasing margin.
Tomorrow the peloton hits the pavé of Paris-Roubaix and we should see the first seismic shifts in the general classification.
