Disappointed Quinn Simmons beaten to the punch on Tour de France stage 6
The American champion had to settle for second place after Ben Healy launched the decisive attack from the eight-man break on the road to Vire.
Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) had to settle for second place on stage 6 of the Tour de France in Vire after the American's plans in the winning break were pre-empted by Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost).
The Irishman stole a march on the eight-man move by attacking alone with 42km remaining. While Simmons proved the strongest of the chasers on the punchy finale, it was too late to reel in Healy.
Simmons was joined by Michael Storer (Tudor) in a counterattack on the category 3 ascent of the Côte de Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie in the finale, but they were unable to make any inroads into Healy’s advantage. The American outlasted Storer on the tough haul to the finish, but he came in 2:44 down on Healy.
“This rolling terrain at the end of a hard day is almost custom-made for me. It’s a big opportunity I just missed,” Simmons said afterwards. “Unfortunately, in cycling you only remember the winners, so…”
Simmons had earned his ticket to this Tour with a fine stage win on the Tour de Suisse, when he attacked first from the break and then fended off the peloton. He had a similar play in mind here, but Healy is a past master at picking and choosing his moment from a move like this.
“He did a nice move,” Simmons said. “I had planned to on the climb at 27k to go, thinking it was early enough because here often when it’s such a hard day, whoever attacks first will make it – if you have the legs, of course. I’d already thought planning to go 27k out was early enough, but I guess it wasn’t.”
Simmons had work to do for green jersey Jonathan Milan ahead of the intermediate sprint at the start of the stage, but he had the freedom to join the break of strongmen that eventually formed after a fierce opening two hours of racing. As well as Healy and Storer, the move featured Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula) and Will Barta (Movistar).
“I didn’t look at the race book too much until I got the call that I was coming to the Tour for sure,” Simmons said. “But last week, when I started diving into the stages, I put a little check mark next to today. It’s a hard day.
“I thought the break would make it, and if we raced hard at the start, like we did, it would be a group of strong guys. I need everyone to be fatigued to do something in the final. I’m not one of these guys that can follow a Van der Poel when he goes with fresher legs. I knew it was a good stage for me so after Jonny took the first sprint, we could race a bit.”
