Why doesn't anyone attack in the Tour de France?

• Chronicle Lutsenko wins in Mont Aigoual before the passivity of the favorites

"If you were on a bike and saw the speed at which we go up ...".

A

, bruised by a fall caused by an inopportune stone in the

middle of the road, he wanted not bite his tongue at the top of the Mont Aigoual unprecedented in the French Massif Central.

While the fans were whispering their disappointment for another day of the dry skirmish Tour, with no other emotion than seeing the escaped Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) reach the finish line first, the Balearic cyclist defended his performance and that of the majority of the peloton in this first week of Tour, anodyne to the extreme.

Let's review.

First stage: Jumbo applies the collective brake after a constant cascade of falls.

Second and third: conventional, the escape reaches as far as it can and the final arrival is launched.

Fourth: first mountain pass with a single winning attack by

in the last kilometer.

Fifth: arrival to the sprint after a day without a single escape, something never seen, except in the final stages, since 1998. And sixth, this Thursday: not a single movement among the favorites despite having 26 kilometers of ascent in the final 34 .

Only

dared for a while, not too long, to make his way alone, anticipating a later attack from his leader

that never came.

“At this speed, little can be done.

There is fear of rushing, of hitting a worthless heat and risking even wasting time.

Today's was not an end to draw differences either, "

excused himself

at the finish line just after Mas verbalized his boredom with" some commentators or journalists.

«It is being a very fast Tour, the day that Roglic won we climbed to

and today the same.

We are all running with more head than other years, "added the leader of Movistar, who reached the finish line in a group of about 30 units in which no one was missing, not even the still leader Adam Yates.

The Briton points out one of the keys to the conservatism with which the squad travels across the French geography: “Without a doubt there is a power struggle between Ineos and Jumbo from the Dauphiné.

Both teams are strong and very well structured, we will see how it evolves.

While waiting for the Pyrenees to appear over the weekend, what is being seen is, basically, the consolidation of the trend that the Tour has been following in recent years, with the aggravations that no longer only the Sky / Ineos is committed to cycling-control, but now Jumbo wants to prevail in that field, and that

is no longer there

to shake up the race from the first day in the mountains, as he used to do.

It was the Dutch who set the tone in Orcières-Merlette on Tuesday and the British who did it this Thursday, on the way to Mont Aigoual.

Now, the former did it so that Roglic could finish the job - and he did - and the latter so that no one moved, as they later recognized.

A clue that, perhaps,

has not yet found his ideal point to seek his second Tour.

No reason to risk

The absence of an inaugural time trial, whether individual or team, or an early pavement day also encourages the conservatism of runners and sports directors.

Nobody of the important ones has lost time - the first 20 are in a margin of 40 seconds -, so nobody finds reason to risk.

And the route of the Tour, with a lot of crumb in the last week in the Alps, does not invite us to propose too much fight at the moment, as

, voice of experience

, commented

: «The last days are very demanding and the teams are thinking that, the less you spend in these first days, the better ”.

Does the unusual year that we all live also influence?

It's possible.

After all, most riders have gone longer than ever in their adult lives without riding a bike, as a result of confinement, and the Tour arrives with barely a month of real preparation on their legs.

However, the speed that some runners argue as the underlying reason is not such, according to the precedents of recent years.

In 2019 and 2017, only one of the first six stages was slower than any of the six this year.

In 2018, all six were faster.

You have to go until 2007 to find an average speed lower than this edition after the first six stages.

The Tour, in short, is not only being boring, but also slow.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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