Special envoy to Limoges
Far behind the star duo Jonas Vingegaard-Tadej Pogacar, the third place on the podium occupied by the Australian Jai Hindley (winner of the 5th stage in Laruns, yellow jersey for one day) is coveted by a small peloton of ambitious riders. David Gaudu (7th at 4’03” from Jonas Vingegaard), the leader of the Groupama-FDJ team remains clinging to his initial objective, to reach the podium in Paris. 4th in 2022, the Breton escorted by Valentin Madouas, Thibaut Pinot or Kevin Géniets believes in it.
At the finish of the 6th stage, at the top of Cauterets-Cambasque, after the first two mountain stages, David Gaudu (13th in the stage won by Tadej Pogacar, after finishing 9th in Laruns the day before) summarized: “This Tour is an endurance race. There are days when we are very good and days that are more difficult. There’s still a lot of mountain coming up, unfortunately I still lost about thirty seconds, but that’s part of the Tour de France. We continue to hang on. The Alps will be decisive. The Tour is still very, very long, we are not going to lose the course. We are slowly but surely improving the general classification. Little by little, casually, we moved up a few places overall, I was 15th… The team is motivated, we can’t let go. The others can also experience more difficult days, this is where you will have to take advantage of them. »
To manage to sneak in, hang a little light in this race cut in two because the big meetings (another six mountain stages, plus the rugged Passy-Combloux time trial) should accentuate the big gap between Vingegaard – Pogacar and the rest of the leaders.
“We are still in the game, and it will be an elimination race. If you turn the pages of the roadbook, you realize that we have done almost nothing,” underlines Marc Madiot, manager of the Groupama-FDJ team. “On the Col de la Loze (17th stage Saint-Grevais-Mont Blanc – Courchevel), the differences will be counted in minutes”, summarizes Thibaut Pinot.
The last podium for a Frenchman on the Champs-Elysées dates from 2017 with Romain Bardet (3rd). The Auvergnat (8th at 4’43” in the general classification) is, like David Gaudu, still in the race for a place of choice on this Tour. His experience will be invaluable on a Tour that starts at high speed which announces a series of formidable events.
