'Fight to the finish' - Merlier finds a way through chaos to claim Tour win

Merlier, for his part, was reluctant to label this as perfection, but it was good enough. He timed his effort smartly, hitting the front inside the final 200m and comfortably holding off Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) to claim the win.

“Perfect? I don’t know, because I launched my sprint with I don’t know far left to go,” Merlier said afterwards.

“It was a mess to be in position, but I made it. Thanks to the team for it, it was great work from them. After all the work two days ago and today, we were the only team with Alpecin who were riding to take the breakaway back, so I’m happy it’s not another team who won.”

Merlier was shepherded by his Soudal Quick-Step teammate Jasper Stuyven until deep into the finale, but his calling card is his ability to surf the wheels and find his own path to the front of the race at precisely the right time.

His initial plan was to track the wheel of Jasper Philipsen, who was being led out by Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Mathieu van der Poel, but the wide boulevards of Bordeaux made that a complicated endeavour. 

“For a long time I could follow Jasper, but then I lost him and I was in the ‘casino,’” Merlier explained. “They boxed me away everywhere, so I needed to go back to Jasper. I got a bit more space, time to give the legs a bit of air, but then in the last 600m we were again boxing. But I thought to myself, ‘No, you’re going to fight to the finish,’ and I’m happy I could take it.”

Merlier has now won four Tour stages over the years, after opening his account in 2021 and claiming a pair of victories twelve months ago. Indeed, in his six Grand Tour participations to date, his only blank came on the 2022 Vuelta a España.

“It’s only my third Tour de France and in every participation, I take a win and that makes me proud,” said Merlier,

A knee injury delayed the 33-year-old’s start to the season, but he was quickly up to speed with a Scheldeprijs victory. His triumph here justified Soudal Quick-Step’s decision to resist the temptation to bring Giro d’Italia stand-out Paul Magnier to the Tour, and it came a day after losing lead-out man Bert Van Lerberghe.

“I knew I had a very good man in Jasper, but without Bert it was a bit of a struggle. I felt that. With his broad shoulders, he often easily creates some space,” said Merlier, who dedicated his victory to a family friend in an interview with Sporza. “The man who drove my brother and me to races since I was 12 is dying. This one is for him. I hope he saw it.”