Tour de France Stage 21: A Social Ride into Paris and the Final Sprint
It’s time to bid adieu to the final stage of the 104th Tour de France
The last stage is my favorite, but very little happens; the four jersey winners roll out together, the yellow jersey and his team sip a little champagne, and then they lap the Champs-Élysées before a final sprint.
Highlights of the start included cheeky Michael Matthews snatching Vasili Kiryienka’s champagne. When the Sky rider ride up looking for his champagne, the Aussie shrugged in apology, pointed at it, and took a sip as he rode away.
The second best moment: As Froome keeps drinking his champagne (apple juice?) Luke Rowe coordinates a move with Kiryienka to spray beer on their leader. For his part, Froome laughed it off, toasted a motorcycle camera, and then grabbed another beer and took revenge on his teammate who sits in last place overall.
“That’s going to stink by the end of the day” — Matthew Keenan
Yoann Offredo “attacked” not long after the festivities, so he could ride up the road and meet his family; he’s from the area. After a series of photos, he rejoined the peloton, led by Team Sunweb.
It’s not all fun and games, is it?
It mostly is. The jerseys are settled; the only competition with any points remaining has been decisively won by Matthews, who holds an insurmountable lead in the sprinter competition.
His Sunweb teammate, Warren Barguil, also has a massive lead for his polka-dot jersey of the the King of the Mountain, and there aren’t any points remaining. The yellow jersey for the overall leader sits safely on Froome, and the white jersey for the best young rider is Simon Yates.
Even the overall award for most combative rider has been awarded, after a vote by a predominantly French jury. It was a bit of a heartbreak announcement: Although Thomas de Gendt (“Thomas the Breakaway”) has spent the most time in the most breaks, the award went to Warren Barguil. Barguil is an impressive and dynamic rider who lit up the race this year, but he’s already won the polka-dot jersey for best climber, and some stages.
Dis oui! Dis oui!
Wait, what’s that? It’s a marriage proposal! Cyril Gautier flashes a note to “Caroline” seconds after his teammate Pierre Roland rides by the camera yelling “Dis oui!”
What about the stage final?
Oh sorry, we were talking about the race! Yes. The final sprint. This is the one moment of tension, especially today. Too many sprinters have failed to win — or even come close to winning — a sprint this year.
Andre Greipel of Lotto-Soudal, Alexander Kristoff, Dylan Groenewegen, Nacer Bouhanni, and John Degenkolb are just some of the sprinters hoping for a victory today. Matthews must want to win too, taking one more stage win for Sunweb, but the favorite sprinter today is Greipel.
He may not be the most likely winner, but he’s won a stage in every grand tour he entered since 2012. This year he struggled to find a win against his countryman Marcel Kittel. With Kittel’s abandonment from illness and a crash, it’s Greipel’s big chance to win the sprint.
OK — what about Bardet?
He’s one second — one second! — ahead of Mikel Landa for third place, and he could possibly lose that one second today. The danger zone is after the race proper begins, for eight laps up the Champs-Élysées and around the Arc de Triomphe.
Depending on weather, they may neutralize the time and call it at the end of lap one, but the rain held off today and made for a proper finish. The last 7 kilometers saw an attack by Dmitriy Gruzdev, a Kazakh who rides for Astana, caught; then an attack by Kittel’s teammate Zdeněk Štybar, a Czech rider for Quickstep.
The break can’t hold, can it?
The chance is nonexistent. Štybar held a small gap against a 60 kilometer per hour peloton, caught by Tony Martin on the Place de la Concorde with only 2.5 kilometers remaining. Edvald Boasson-Hagen of Mark Cavendish’s Dimension Data team, who has won a stage, got to the front with Groenewegen over the next kilometer, and they came out of the tunnel, with 1.2 kilometers to go, and no sign of Greipel.
The big German makes it into the right position finally, and it looks solid; Groenewegen seemingly goes early, Greipel a little late, and although the Gorilla looks faster, it’s Groenewegen who has it, right on the line. It’s a photo finish, but the faces tell the story: Greipel knows he’s failed, and Groenewegen rides off in triumph. Despite his speed and his sheer power, Greipel just wasn’t where he needed to be, and his attack was too late.
No win for the Gorilla!
Not this year, sadly. That’s racing though: Someone loses, someone else wins big. It’s a huge day for Dutchman Groenewegen, who has won his first Tour de France stage in this, his second Tour.
Bardet held his finish, too, with no gap to Landa; he retains third place and his podium position. In some ways, it’s an upgrade from last year, where he finished 2nd more than 4 minutes behind Froome. This year he’s finished closer in time, and only lost time on the time trials.
What a day!
It’s not over yet. Next it’s about 6 hours of presentations, ceremonies, air show hijinks by the French acrobatic Patrouille jet team, and lots of photo ops for the podium winners.
What’s it all mean?
You want some in-depth predictions for the 2018 Tour already? Maybe a guess at how they’ll do in Spain at La Vuelta next month? Nope, sorry, not today: I’ll try to think about some of that for later this week and a final wrap-up post, but not today! I need a break. You get a recap today and that’s it.
Wait, wait — did Caroline say oui?
Thanks to Robbie McEwen, we know that her answer to Gautier was yes! No wedding date just yet, but maybe the young Frenchman will start as a married man next year?
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Thanks for reading! I write about cycling and am currently blogging the 2017 Tour de France here on Medium.
Visit my personal website at davidstreever.com.
Just tuning in? Want to catch up on earlier stages? See the whole series here on Medium.
