Sunshine, strategy and solos on stage 6 - Domestique Debrief

The second-longest stage of the race began in Bayeux, under stunning blue skies and with a breath-taking, vibrant tribute to local hero Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea-B&B Hotels, who was celebrated by his fans with - amongst other things - a hot air balloon with his face on it. Because of course!

After pre-race drama over who would wear the polka dot jersey, which ultimately led to Jonas Vingegaard having to ride with some tape on his chest to cover a banned logo, a protracted game of chess ensued, during which all the jerseys were up for grabs - in fact, only one of them stayed on the same rider's shoulders by the end of the day - and even that one - Remco Evenepoel's white jersey - looked for a while as if it would transfer to the storming Ben Healy. Speaking of the Irishman, let's begin our summary with the day's stage winner.

On stage 6, we saw Ben Healy doing exactly what he does best: a trademark solo launch within 40 to 50km of the finish. It's something we've seen time and time again from the former Irish champion. Sometimes it sticks. More often than not, he gets caught - he had just two WorldTour wins prior to Thursday - but he's undeniably brave, and incredibly resilient, and he was bold enough to try his luck in the presence of some seriously high calibre opponents. When he got away, it wasn't even on a climb, but he powered clear, and the resulting hesitancy in the chasing group meant that he was able to build quickly on his lead and continue to do so all the way to the line. 

His incredible victory margin of 2:44 has shot him 25 places up the GC and brought him a first stage win at the Tour de France, something that he's been working towards for a number of years. He's still just 24 and there's every sign that he has the legs - and now the confidence - to maybe do it all over again later on in the Tour.

Might EF Education-EasyPost shift to a GC defence now that he's up in the top 10? It seems unlikely. Battling for the GC just isn't their style, nor is it his. He's a maverick, and we love him for it. You do you, Ben.

Keeping the argument about road furniture out of it for now, and noting for the record that opening stage sprints are not particularly smart, it has to be acknowledged that the route design so far has on the whole been excellent.

Taking in the gems of the north of the country, the stages have flowed nicely, alternating between punchy, sprint-y and a time trial, mixing up the GC on a daily basis and offering plenty of intrigue and excitement. Today’s early intermediate sprint placement and KoM points allowed for a fascinating opening to the stage, and one which invited relentless attacking, a brilliant contrast to the other rolling, punchy stages that have tempted the GC favourites to come out to play. On Friday, we move into Brittany where it’s expected we’ll see more fireworks, and though the weekend packs in two more flat stages, the final stage before the first rest day looks set to be an absolute barnstormer, packing in a ridiculous eight categorised climbs and 4,450m of altitude gain on Bastille Day, to set us up for act II in the mountains. 

Fair play to ASO for putting together a well thought-out and nicely paced parcours, that’s so far delivered plenty of drama – mostly of the good kind. 

For the first time in this year’s Tour, we finally had a sustained breakaway formation phase, and watching it unfold was utterly fascinating. It revealed a great deal, about the individual goals of various riders, and the tactics of the GC teams, with Visma | Lease a Bike playing the role of agitators, using Tadej Pogačar's yellow jersey against him as they repeatedly attacked, forcing UAE to close move after move in a doomed effort to exert some control over the race situation. 

It's likely to lose them friends among the bunch, as everyone would have been suffering, not just UAE Team Emirates, but it’s also genius – there’s little you can do against a talent like Tadej Pogačar, but increasing the attrition rate on his team and forcing them to police the relentless breakaway attacks is one of the tools they have available to them – Pogačar speculated that they may have wanted to force him to stay in yellow to continue to pressure UAE into controlling, a tactic which ultimately failed, though that turned out in the end to be more down to the late charge from the maillot jaune himself…

Okay, it's not that easy to be 'incognito' when you're dressed head to toe in yellow lycra, but the point stands: it’s not often we see a Grand Tour stage unfold without the noticeable impact of Tadej Pogačar. While he tried to exert his influence as the maillot jaune to try and calm down proceedings earlier on in the stage, he wasn’t able to shut down Visma’s relentless attacking alone, and allowed his team to do their jobs, before UAE eventually allowed to the gap to grow, apparently making the sensible decision to sacrifice the race lead. 

Except… that’s not exactly what happened in the end. With Visma attacking on the final climb to try to ensure that yellow stayed on the shoulders of the Slovenian, Pogačar did the only thing he could at first, and followed. As the bunch were shredded and the time gap plummeted to the next in line to the yellow throne, Mathieu van der Poel, he then unleashed his true self, popping up to assert his authority over the rest of the GC bunch, and in doing so, almost sealed his own fate – only relinquishing his jersey by a single second in the end. He just cannot help himself. 

In the end, it’s the perfect outcome for UAE- with Pogačar giving back all three jerseys which he won yesterday to their previous owners, he was left with zero post-race commitments, and tomorrow his team can sit back and allow Alpecin-Deceuninck to take the wheel, defending the lead of the  irrepressible Dutchman

It was a day on which he took back yellow, and added points to his total in the green jersey classification – Van der Poel played it smart on stage 6. He was in the right place at the right time for the intermediate sprint, out-pacing Biniam Girmay to take second place on the line and haul in a significant 17 points, before waiting until the perfect moment to jump across to the breakaway, without wasting any unnecessary energy. After that, he went pretty deep to ensure he would wear the yellow jersey as he returns to the site of his first ever Tour de France victory, the Mur de Bretagne. It’s symbolic, and will mean a great to him – though given how deep he went in the end, it may only be one more day in yellow, before he sets his sights on other goals. 

Van der Poel can enjoy the best of all worlds at this Tour – spending several days in the yellow jersey, fighting for the green jersey - a competition in which he's now placed second, just four points behind leader Jonathan Milan, and taking his pick of stages to target. Though regrettable, without the presence of his sprinter Jasper Philipsen, and as he's not seen as a threat for the overall GC, he’s essentially at leisure to freelance his way through the Tour, picking and choosing his targets. Once he gives up yellow for good, he may perhaps conserve energy in the mountain stages and attempt to go out with a bang in Paris – it’s certainly not outside the realms of possibility that he could take a win on the Champs-Elysée in green.