Quillan (France) (AFP)
A double gift for the attackers: the 14th stage of the Tour de France was offered to the Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Trek), winner on Saturday in Quillan, and to the Frenchman Guillaume Martin, new runner-up to the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, still yellow jersey.
Before the high altitude, scheduled for Sunday, Pogacar was not attacked by his direct rivals.
The situation was taken advantage of by Martin (Cofidis), who took more than five minutes to climb from ninth to second place in the general classification, 4:04 am from the Slovenian.
"It was risky," said the Normand, first Frenchman in the 2020 Tour (11th), who finished eleventh in the stage, 1 min 28 behind the winner Mollema.
"I spent a lot of energy to keep the breakaway alive and I had a little problem with dehydration on the final. It's the Tour, you have to take risks, I hope I won't. pay tomorrow ".
Having come to the start on the Tour to win the stage victory that his team has been waiting for since 2008, Martin finds himself surprisingly placed in the general classification.
Even if his limits in the time trial, an exercise scheduled for next Saturday on the eve of the finish, reduce his ambitions for a hypothetical podium.
- The risks of Guillaume Martin -
"It's a good day," smiled Martin, the only Frenchman able to aim for a place in the final standings.
"I'm happy with the way we raced, our aggressiveness. Usually we are more defensive, this year I want to take risks."
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Mollema also knew how to take risks 43 kilometers from the finish.
He attacked the first in the leading group of 14 riders, in this 183.7 km stage started with a beating pace.
The breakaway only formed after more than an hour and a half!
The peloton was eager to breathe in this exhausting Tour that Warren Barguil and the Dane Soren Kragh Andersen gave up on the day after their fall.
"When I had 1 min 30, I knew that I had a pretty good chance", explained the Dutchman, experienced rider (34 years old) already winner in 2017 in another medium mountain stage, in Le Puy- en-Velay.
The Dutchman, who was aiming for the general rankings at the start of his career (3rd in the Vuelta 2011, 6th in the Tour 2013), also has a "monument", the Tour of Lombardy (2019), to his prize list.
"We are really aiming for stage victories, we are no longer in the general classification," added Mollema, third Wednesday in the Ventoux stage behind his teammate Kenny Elissonde.
- At home in Andorra -
Winner of the Tour de l'Avenir 2007 at the age of 20, cataloged a climber in his beginnings, the former student in the Faculty of Economics has a wider register.
"I am a fairly complete runner. I like the wind and the cobbles," he recalls on occasion.
And also the one-day races, like the Tour of Lombardy and also the Clasica San Sebastian 2016.
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In Quillan, Mollema rubbed shoulders on the podium with Canadian Michael Woods, who donned the polka-dot mountain jersey.
Woods crashed during the stage but managed to regain his place in the pursuit group behind Mollema and finish 5th on the stage, behind Austrian Patrick Konrad, Colombian Sergio Higuita and Italian Mattia Cattaneo.
"Tomorrow (Sunday), I am at home, I know the route by heart", rejoiced the Canadian who, like many runners, has established himself in the Principality of Andorra.
The 15th stage, in fact, links Céret (Pyrénées-Orientales) to Andorra la Vella (191.3 km).
It climbs to the highest point of this edition, at the port of Envalira, at 2408 meters above sea level.
Before the Col de Beixalis, a steep and narrow climb in the last 20 kilometers, followed by a rapid descent to the Andorran capital.
© 2021 AFP