Thibaut Pinot was in the good breakaway, in the nails at the decisive moment in the Col de la Croix Rosier (28 km from the finish) but he was unable to compete with the Spaniard Ion Izaguirre (Cofidis) gone to get a second victory on the Tour (after the one won in Morzine in 2016).
6th in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, the Franc-Comtois summed up, at the microphone of France Télévisions: “I missed my legs. I was cooked. I struggled to recover from my efforts in the final. I gave everything but I was not having a great day. It was a day out. Movistar played well, Cofidis too. You have to be many in breakaways like that. We had some small ups and downs at the start of the stage. And we saved the day, that’s how it is. »
Replaced in the general classification (10th at 6’33” from the Danish yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard), just 32” from his leader David Gaudu, Thibaut Pinot lets go, without hesitating that his objective remains “to go into breakaways, to to help David. I expect to lose time tomorrow (this Friday, at the top of the Grand Colombier). For the moment, the general classification does not interest me. »
