Alpecin Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen won stage 16 of the Tour de France (from Gruissan to Nimes) for his third victory of the year. The Belgian sprinter once again benefited from a near-perfect lead from his team-mate and world road race champion Mathieu van der Poel.
However, as Philipson was celebrating, his teammate and championship-leading sprinter Biniam Girmay carefully climbed to his feet after a serious crash with a kilometer and a half to go. The Eritrean, racing for the Intermarche Wanty team, was clearly in some pain as he crossed the finish line.
With Gilme failing to score and Phillipson reaching 100 points, the gap between the two has now narrowed to 32 points with just five stages remaining.
“He climbs really well,” Philpson said of Guilme. “I just wish him well after the crash because he didn’t deserve to lose like this. But I will try my best because the hard part is yet to come.
Mark Cavendish made his final sprint finish at the Tour de France, finishing 17th after losing contact with the team in a number of tight corners on the way to the finish.
On a hot, lazy afternoon with temperatures climbing into the mid-30s, the peloton handled it with ease, moving at a steady pace through the furnace conditions of Hérault and Gard, accompanied by the chirping of cicadas.
Only as the peloton entered the outskirts of the ancient Roman city did the pace begin to pick up, as the sprinters realized that with the climbs now dominating the finale of this year’s Tour de France, this was their last chance to make the stage.
Meanwhile, the cycling world is witnessing some of the fastest rides in history as Emirates Team leader Tadej Pogacar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard’s stunning performances in the Pyrenees continue.
“On Sunday I was better than ever,” Vengergaard said of his performance on the Bayer Plateau stage, which was won by Pogacar. “These were probably the two best mountain performances in the history of cycling,” he said.
Vingegaard of the Visma rental bike team also confirmed to Danish media that he uses a device that delivers precise doses of carbon monoxide into the lungs to measure the benefits of altitude training.
From May 27 to June 3, Vingegaard went to the Tignes ski station at an altitude of 1,810 meters in the French Alps. His team has been training at high altitude in Tignes for the past six years.
Vengergaard confirmed to Politico in Danish that he had used the device, but did not specify when. “It’s to measure the amount of hemoglobin in your blood,” the 2022 and 2023 Tour winner said.
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Vengergaard said the currently legal carbon monoxide technology “is not a dangerous thing,” adding that his medical team “said they send something to the lungs similar to smoking.”
“There’s nothing suspicious about it,” he said. “We measure the number of red blood cells in your blood and the effectiveness of the altitude training camp.
“We measure the day we reach altitude and then the day we return. Then we see the difference in heme accumulation. There’s nothing more to it.
Vingegaard always disclaims any performance enhancement, legal or otherwise. “I know deep down that I’m not going to take anything away. I’m not going to take away anything that I wouldn’t give to my daughter,” he said in July 2023.
When asked by the Guardian if he was familiar with the technology that Vengergaard has been using, Pogacar said: “When I hear that, I think of car exhaust. I don’t know much about it, so I won’t comment. .I had no idea what that was. I thought it was something from car exhaust, so maybe I was just uneducated.
On Wednesday’s 17th stage, the peloton set off from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to the Superdevoluy mountain resort overlooking the Gap. The final 30 kilometers will feature a Class III climb, and it’s unlikely any primary car will be able to catch an easy breather.
