Tour de France Crushing defeat for Roglic – Girmay with third victory
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe captain Primoz Roglic suffered a serious crash shortly before the finish. Photo
© Marco Bertorello/AFP/dpa
The 111th Tour is not going at all to Primoz Roglic’s liking from the German Red Bull team. On stage twelve, the Slovenian top rider experiences a surprising setback.
After his crushing defeat in the battle for overall victory at the Tour de France, Primoz Roglic boarded the team bus without saying a word. After a fall, the Slovenian captain of the German cycling team Red Bull lost 2:27 minutes to his competitors, including overall leader Tadej Pogacar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard. “That was not a good day. Primoz had a bad fall and we now have to talk to the doctors about what to do next,” said sports director Rolf Aldag with a serious expression after the twelfth stage.
The overall victory in the Tour and also the minimum goal of a podium finish are becoming increasingly distant for the 2023 Giro winner. In the overall standings, the 34-year-old is now in sixth place, 4:42 minutes behind Pogacar. “Mentally, it’s not easy to process,” added Aldag, referring to the captain’s second fall within 24 hours: “The sport is now taking a bit of a back seat, now it’s all about the person Primoz Roglic.”
Mass crash ten kilometers from the finish
The fateful mass crash occurred just ten kilometers from the finish in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. Roglic was able to continue, but was losing more and more time to his competitors. The crash happened at the wrong time, when the sprint teams were just forming up. “Yesterday he fell on the left side, today on the right. I can’t say anything more specific yet,” continued Aldag.
Pogacar shared his compatriot’s suffering a little. “I’m really shocked by this bad news. I feel very sorry for him. I hope he continues. I wish him the best,” said the Slovenian.
It is another setback for Roglic. In the Tour so far, he had lost time little by little. To make matters worse, the cycling star from the Red Bull team also lost his injured helper Alexander Vlasov on Sunday. Then came a fall on the difficult stage on Wednesday. But he remained uninjured.
Ackermann third in Girmay’s day win
In the sensational third stage victory of the Eritrean Biniam Girmay, the German sprinter Pascal Ackermann, who came third after the 203.6 kilometers, missed out on his first daily victory in the Tour de France. “We were perfectly positioned. It was all really great. When we wanted to set off, Kristoff went over to the right (…) luckily we didn’t fall,” Ackermann complained on ARD about the Norwegian veteran Alexander Kristoff and called for his disqualification: “That was criminal.”
Although the jury did not criticize Kristoff’s driving style, the Frenchman Arnaud Demare was relegated, which at least gave Ackermann third place – a small consolation. The Belgian Wout van Aert came in third.
Superstar Tadej Pogacar remains in the yellow jersey and is still 1:06 minutes ahead of Belgian time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel in the overall ranking. Third is defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, 1:14 minutes behind.
Sprinter Jakobsen drops out
One day after the strenuous climb in the Massif Central, the riders were also struggling with the high temperatures. Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen had to give up. The reason for this was initially unclear. The 27-year-old one-time Tour stage winner, who had to say goodbye after stage twelve last year, fell back on Thursday and said goodbye to the tour just 180 kilometers from the finish.
65 kilometers later, Spaniard Pello Bilbao got off his bike with a heavy heart. The teammate of sprinter Phil Bauhaus and Nikias Arndt had won his first Tour stage last year. His team announced on “X” that he had not been feeling well the day before.
First known corona case on the tour
Before the stage, a well-known rider had already dropped out of the Tour. The Dane Michael Morkov from the racing team around sprint idol Mark Cavendish was the first rider to give up in this year’s national tour due to a corona infection. According to his Astana team, the 39-year-old top rider tested positive for Cavendish, but he did not have any serious symptoms. For the experienced racing driver, his last Tour de France ended prematurely.
Before the demanding weekend in the Pyrenees, the pros can expect a largely flat 165.3 kilometers between Agen and Pau on Friday. This will probably be the sprinters’ penultimate chance in this year’s national tour.
dpa
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