Omar Fraile powers to stage 14 victory – Tour de France
Tour de France 2018
Stage 14
Basque climber Fraile, of the Astana team, attacked on the leg-sapping Cote de la Croix Neuve to reel in lone leader Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) and hold French favourite Julian Alaphilippe(Quick-Step Floors) at bay.
Twice winner of the king of the mountains competition in La Vuelta and a stage winner in last year’s Giro d’Italia, Fraile crested the summit of the Montee Laurent Jalabert – named after the Frenchman who first won there in 1995 – before dropping down to the finish line at the Mende airfield to secure his first stage win on the Tour.
Six seconds later, the polka dot jersey of Alaphilippe pipped Stuyven in the sprint for second place after the Belgian had arrived at the foot of the final climb with the best part of two minutes to play with following a brave solo attack 35km from the finish of the 188km stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux.
The indefatigable world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) finished an impressive fourth place just four seconds later to further consolidate his massive lead in the green jersey points classification while adding a ninth top-five finish in a race in which he has practically been ever-present.
Spectators then had a long wait until the battle for the general classification unfolded, with the peloton not reaching the foot of the iconic climb until well after Fraile had come to terms with what he labelled as the biggest win of his career.
A medley of attacks between the race favourites saw the likes of Romain Bardet (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Mikel Landa (Movistar) lose valuable seconds, while Ireland’s Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) was caught out with an untimely puncture at the foot of the climb.
But it was honours even between the top three riders of the race as yellow jersey Thomas finished alongside Sky team-mate Froome and their Dutch rival Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) more than 18 minutes down on the winner – and eight seconds behind the impressive Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo).
Making his move on the steepest 13% gradient half way up the climb, Slovenia’s Roglic blew the race apart in an attack which distanced both Bardet and Quintana while momentarily putting both Dumoulin and Froome into the red.
Dumoulin recovered to lead the chase but the Sky duo of Thomas and Froome took it in turns to attack as all three finished together after a fierce battle of attrition. As such, Welshman Thomas retained his 1’39” advantage over four-time champion Froome, with Dumoulin a further 11 seconds back.
Roglic’s explosive cameo saw him consolidate his fourth place and move within 59 seconds of Froome, while Frenchman Bardet, who conceded 14 seconds to his direct rivals, stays in fifth place but drops to 3’21” in arrears.
Sagan continued his inexorable pursuit of a record-equalling sixth green jersey by increasing his tally to 437 points – just 43 points shy of his own record and some 267 points clear of his nearest challenger, Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates).
Alaphilippe moved 20 points clear of compatriot Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic) in the battle for polka dots while another Frenchman, Pierre Latour of Ag2R-La Mondiale, retained the white jersey.
Early crosswinds blew the peloton into disparate groups in a feisty start that saw both Bardet and Landa caught out while a large break of 32 riders formed off the front.
The hot favourite for the stage – the Frenchman in polka dots, Alaphlippe – was there with two Quick-Step Floors team-mates in Philippe Gilbert and Yves Lampaert, as well the ubiquitous green jersey of Sagan and his Bora-Hansgrohe team-mate Maciej Bodnar.
If French wildcard team Fortuneo-Samsic were entirely absent following Barguil falling foul of those echelons, Direct Energie had five riders (Lilian Calmejane, Jerome Cousin, Thomas Boudat, Sylvain Chavanel and Damien Gaudin) and Cofidis had four (Christophe Laporte, Nicolas Edet, Anthony Perez and Anthony Turgis).
The rest of the break was comprised of Dani Martinez and Pierre Rolland (EF Education First), Simon Geschke (Sunweb), Gorka Izagirre and Kristjian Koren (Bahrain-Merida), Michael Hepburn and Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott), Andrey Amador (Movistar), Damiano Caruso, Stefan Küng and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Tom-Jelte Slagter and Julien Vermote (Dimension Data), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Michael Gogl and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo), Thomas Degand (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and the eventual winner Fraile.
It was an impressive assortment of riders featuring 10 former stage winners on the Tour and seven Belgians on their country’s national day.
Winding roads over undulating terrain through the stunning Gorges de l’Ardeche saw the strong break stretch out a lead of six minutes before the first of four categorised climbs, which Alaphilippe crested in pole position to consolidate his lead in the polka dot jersey competition.
Sagan – who else – won the intermediate sprint as the gap ballooned above 10 minutes as the race zipped through the Lozere and into the Cevennes national park, entering the most sparsely populated region of France.
It wasn’t until the second climb that the first cracks appeared in the break after Spanish national champion Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain Merida) soloed clear with 62km remaining. He was soon joined by Dutchman Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data) and then, on the exposed plateau after the summit, Stuyven as the chasing group behind split in two.
The trio opened up a gap of almost two minutes going over the summit of the third climb before Stuyven took advantage of a dispute between Izagirre and Slagter to zip forward alone. With the peloton at this point riding 20 minutes in arrears and the chasers in turmoil, Stuyven put his head down to open up a decent gap on the gradual downhill schlep towards Mende.
Used for the fifth time in the Tour’s history – and the first time since Steve Cumming’s memorable win in 2015 – the final 3km climb with its stinging double-digit gradient proved quite the spectacle.
De Gendt attacked first from a reformed chase group but he was quickly reeled in by 28-year-old Fraile, who made light work of the gradient and dug deep in pursuit of Stuyven. Alaphilippe countered from a select group of 10 in which the world champion Sagan impressively clung onto despite his sprinter’s powerful bulk.
Fraile danced past Stuyven, who was in turn caught by Alaphilippe near the summit – but the chasing duo ran out of road and were unable to reel in Fraile, who used gravity and strong legs to zip down the descent to take the plaudits.
“It’s an amazing day,” Astana’s Fraile said after the finish. “I’ve been dreaming about this victory. In the end we picked up this phenomenal win and it’s absolutely amazing. It’s easily the best day of my career so far. We had a headwind [on the climb] and it was really tricky, but I just tried to climb it at the best rate I could, and in the end I did have the legs. I knew the climb today very well indeed.”
Much later, the battle for yellow was first ignited with an attack from Landa, which drew out a response from LottoNL-Jumbo duo Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk. Protected by Michal Kwiatkowski and then Egan Bernal, Thomas looked very much in control – and it was the defending champion Froome who instead looked in trouble when Roglic kicked clear.
Dumoulin managed to close the gap on Froome before putting in an attack himself – to which the Sky duo replied along with Quintana, until the Colombian faded near the summit.
There followed a stalemate between the three best riders in this year’s Tour – content with extending their lead over their rivals, but perhaps sharing a collective concern for the rise of Roglic. A tenacious climber and imperious time triallist, the 28-year-old looms large on GC and could well have his say in the final week.
Tomorrow’s stage 15 takes the riders 181.5km from Millau to Carcassonne.
The peloton passes through the beautiful Montagne Noire area of the southwestern tip of the Massif Central in a demanding stage that climaxes with the tough Cat.1 Pic de Nore climb – a mini Ventoux-type ascent amazingly only now making its Tour debut – ahead of a fast run to the chocolate box Medieval town of Carcassonne.
If this medium mountain stage has breakaway written all over it, then the top GC riders will also be on red alert for it’s clearly another banana-skin of a day as the race heads towards the Pyrenees.
