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108th Tour de France (2.UWT) Stage 12»Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux›Nîmes(159.4km)
Gepost door Clavan
Mooie plaatjes zijn verzekerd in de 12e Touretappe, want de renners koersen door de Gorges de l’Ardèche. In 159,4 kilometer gaat het over glooiend terrein van Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux naar Nîmes.
Startplaats Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux en de Tour zijn goede bekenden. De 9.000 inwoners mochten in het verleden al drie keer de renners op weg helpen – in 2011, 2012 en 2018 -, maar een finish was er nog nooit.
Het is eenvoudig om tussen Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux en Nîmes een stevige heuvelrit neer te leggen, maar het lijkt erop dat de organisatie dat expres niet heeft gedaan. Het parcours houdt zich redelijk ‘op de vlakte’, wat natuurlijk in de kaart speelt van de sprinters. Wel zou het kunnen dat de wind een duit in het zakje doet, want die kan in deze streken flink huishouden.
Onderweg zijn er eenmaal bergpunten te winnen. De Côte du belvédère de Tharaux is een klimmetje van 4,4 kilometer à 4,6% met de top net voorbij de helft van de race.
Het afgelopen decennium was de Ronde van Frankrijk tweemaal in Nîmes. In 2014 won Alexander Kristoff de sprint, nadat vroege vluchter Jack Bauer op het aller-, aller-, allerlaatste moment was teruggepakt. Twee jaar geleden was de sprint meer rechttoe rechtaan. Caleb Ewan bleef Elia Viviani en Dylan Groenewegen voor.
2014
2019
De finish van deze editie is vergelijkbaar met die van 2019.
De eerste drie renners aan de meet krijgen 10, 6 en 4 bonificatieseconden.
De 12e etappe van de Tour de France start om 13.30 uur en de race finisht naar verwachting rond 17.25 uur.
Het is wisselend bewolkt met kans op een bui. Tijdens zonnige momenten is het ruim 25 graden. Er waait een matige noordenwind en daarmee waait de wind tijdens de etappe meestal in de rug. Dit geldt zeker voor de laatste 25 kilometer. Hierdoor zal het hard gaan, maar de kans op waaiers is klein.
De etappe wordt van start tot finish uitgezonden door Sporza (Eén) en Eurosport 2. Beide zenders schakelen in rond de klok van 13.30 uur. De NOS (NPO1) komt vanaf 14.40 uur met livebeelden van de rit naar Nîmes. Ook via de online kanalen van genoemde zenders is de koers te zien.
GC after stage 11:
GC leader: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
Mountains classificaton leader: Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic)
Points classification leader: Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-Quick Step)
Best young rider: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
Team classification leader: Bahrain Victorious
1,836.9 kilometers raced so far at an average speed of 41.992 km/hr
1 TADEJ POGACAR UAE TEAM EMIRATES 43hr 44min 38sec
2 RIGOBERTO URAN EF EDUCATION-NIPPO @ 5min 18sec
3 JONAS VINGEGAARD JUMBO-VISMA 5' 32''
4 RICHARD CARAPAZ INEOS GRENADIERS 5' 33''
5 BEN O'CONNOR AG2R-CITROEN 5' 58''
6 WILCO KELDERMAN BORA-HANSGROHE 6' 16''
7 ALEXEY LUTSENKO ASTANA-PREMIER TECH 6' 30''
8 ENRIC MAS MOVISTAR 7' 11''
9 GUILLAUME MARTIN COFIDIS 9' 29''
10 PEIO BILBAO BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS 10' 28''
11 MATTIA CATTANEO DECEUNINCK-QUICK STEP 15' 35''
12 AURÉLIEN PARET PEINTRE AG2R-CITROEN 24' 44''
13 WOUT VAN AERT JUMBO-VISMA 25' 21''
14 JHOAN ESTEBAN CHAVES TEAM BIKEEXCHANGE 25' 53''
15 DAVID GAUDU GROUPAMA-FDJ 30' 51''
16 LOUIS MEINTJES INTERMARCHE-WANTY-GOBERT 32' 20''
17 WOUTER POELS BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS 38' 49''
18 BAUKE MOLLEMA TREK-SEGAFREDO 39' 13''
19 DYLAN TEUNS BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS 43' 54''
20 RUBEN GUERREIRO EF EDUCATION-NIPPO 47' 37''
21 JONATHAN CASTROVIEJO INEOS GRENADIERS 49' 17''
22 SERGIO LUIS HENAO QHUBEKA-NEXTHASH 50' 57''
23 KENNY ELISSONDE TREK-SEGAFREDO 53' 35''
24 JAKOB FUGLSANG ASTANA-PREMIER TECH 54' 35''
25 SERGIO ANDRES HIGUITA EF EDUCATION-NIPPO 54' 41''
1969 Tour de France
56th edition: June 28 - July 20, 1969
After the 2-year test the Tour reverted to trade teams. The national team system, while popular with the public, was not without problems. The Tour organization was responsible for the transport, feeding and lodging of the athletes and this was no small expense at a time when the Tour had little to spare.
Additionally, the sponsors detested the system because they suffered a virtual 3-week publicity blackout while their riders rode the most popular event in the cycling calendar. Worse, most of the sponsors had to watch their riders act as domestiques for the riders of other teams. Raymond Poulidor, riding for Mercier the rest of the year, did his best to help Peugeot rider Roger Pingeon win the 1968 Tour. This cannot be what Mercier planned when they sponsored Poulidor. Moreover the riders could not be counted on to forget their trade team loyalties during the Tour when their trade sponsors were the true source of their living. The result was confusion, ambiguity and friction. Given that there were no commanding reasons for the change to national teams in 1967 it is not surprising that the Tour counted its Centimes, listened to the cycling industry, and went back to trade teams.
The Tour organization continued to search for revenue. Cycling's and the Tour's fortunes were hitting a period of low ebb. In 1969, for the first time, the Yellow Jersey had an official sponsor, 2 actually. In 1967 the clothing company Le Coq Sportif acquired the right to put their logo on the Yellow Jersey. In 1969 the synthetic dairy products company Virlux paid to have its name placed on the upper left breast of the Yellow Jersey. Until then the initials of Tour founder Henri Desgrange had been placed somewhere on the front of the Jersey. To make room for the new advertising (including the Yellow Jersey holder's principal sponsor), Desgrange's initials were placed on both shoulders.
At 4,117 kilometers the 1969 Tour was the shortest since Desgrange went from 11 to 15 stages in 1906. With 25 stages (counting the Prologue) the average stage was now only 158 kilometers, a dramatic drop from the nearly 200-kilometer average stage length of the mid-1960's. This doesn't mean that the riders were getting an easier time of it. 3 of the days had split stages. The riders hated the days with 2 stages. They had to get up very early in the morning in order to eat enough and digest their food before the racing started. After the first stage of the day was completed they would wait around in the sweltering July heat, sometimes in tents, before being forced to race again. The return of the split stages was another symptom of the Tour's financial troubles. Cities paid the organization a fat fee to be a start or finish city. By crowding 2 stages in a day the Tour reaped a financial windfall. Still worse for the riders, there were no rest days in 1969. 1968's "Tour of Good Health" was a thing of the past.
It was a clockwise Tour starting in Roubaix and heading into Belgium, then Holland. The Vosges mountains were the first serious climbing, followed by the Alps, the Pyrenees and finally the Massif Central with a trip up Puy de Dôme. From there it was a straight shot north to Paris. This Tour avoided the roads of both Brittany and Normandy, for the first time since the beginning in 1903.
The Tour's entry list of contenders had depth: Jan Janssen (riding for BIC), Herman van Springel (Mann), Joaquim Agostinho (De Gribaldy), Roger Pingeon (Peugeot), Andres Gandarias (KAS), Raymond Poulidor (Mercier), Felice Gimondi and Rudi Altig (Salvarani) plus some new talent riding the Tour for the first time who would shake things up in later years: Lucien van Impe (this Tour was his second race as a pro), Luis Ocaña and Roger De Vlaeminck.
But the 500-pound gorilla was Eddy Merckx. There was no question that he was the most complete and capable rider alive. Merckx won the world amateur road championships in 1964. He turned pro in April 1965 and from there his record of wins is without parallel. He won Milan-San Remo the next year, the first of 7 such victories. In 1967 he won the professional world road championship plus Milan-San Remo, Ghent-Wevelgem, Flèche Wallonne and rode his first Grand Tour, the Giro, coming in ninth. In 1968 he won 32 races including the Giro and Paris-Roubaix.
His 1969 was even more stunning with a total of 43 victories including Paris-Nice, Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He planned to do the Giro-Tour double and was leading the Giro after taking the Pink Jersey on stage 14. It was after stage 16 that he was given the news that he had tested positive for amphetamines. His Pink Jersey was taken from him and he was ejected from the Giro. The new leader of the Giro was Felice Gimondi who went on to take the final victory.
Merckx has maintained to this day that this was a setup to allow an Italian to win the Giro. He says that bribes were offered to him to let an Italian win and when that failed he was set up. He furthermore argues that the stage where he tested positive was so easy that that was no reason to dope. Without a doubt, the circumstances around the testing were anything but clear. Given the cloudy nature of the entire affair, I believe Merckx should be considered innocent. If they had the goods on him, the various questionable oddities which reek of a frame-up that surrounded the affair probably would not have happened.
Seething with rage over the miscarriage of justice and seeking redemption, Merckx came to the Tour with a fury and a will to win that was powerful by even Merckxian standards. There was also the deep seated desire of his countrymen to see a Belgian again in Yellow. The previous year the Belgians had come close when their Herman van Springel lost the Tour to Jan Janssen by only 38 seconds in the final stage. Janssen says that the Belgians were furious at him and still tell him to this day, "You stole the Tour from our Herman van Springel." No Belgian had won the Tour since Sylvère Maes in 1939.
Decided by lot, members of Merckx's team were the first riders to ride the Prologue individual time trial. In a show of bravado Merckx's director, Guillaume Driessens, had Merckx go first. Usually the protected rider goes as late as possible so that he will have riders up the road to chase. Driessens justified the unusual move by saying that the sooner Merckx got his ride finished the sooner he could begin resting for the next day's competition which involved the first of the split stages. Rudi Altig won the Prologue with Merckx in second place, 7 seconds behind. The early riders faced a headwind that calmed down as the later riders finished the course.
Stage 1A as the Tour is in Belgium. Merckx on the Grammont.
Stage 1b was a 15.6-kilometer team time trial in the Belgian city of Woluwe-St. Pierre and passed in front of Merckx's parent's grocery store. Of course Merckx's Faema squad won the stage. While the times of the teams didn't affect the rider's individual General Classification standings, the riders of the fastest 3 teams got 20-, 10- and 5-second time bonuses. By virtue of that 20-second bonification Merckx was in Yellow in his home town. Altig was second at 8 seconds and 1968 Tour winner Jan Janssen was third, 20 seconds back.
It wasn't Merckx's intent to keep the Yellow Jersey all the way to the end. He was pleased when his domestique, Julien Stevens, won the next day's sprint and the lead. Merckx wouldn't relax, but he could save some energy until the race entered the Vosges mountains. Stevens kept the lead as the Tour went through the Argonne region but lost the Yellow Jersey on first day of climbing in stage 5. All the big guns finished together, 18 seconds behind the stage winner, Joaquim Agostinho. One of Pingeon's domestiques Désiré Letort, found himself the new Yellow Jersey, 9 seconds ahead of Merckx.
It was on stage 6 the Merckx made it clear what sort of race this was to be. The race did 3 climbs, culminating in the Ballon d'Alsace, one of the first climbs ever included in the Tour back in 1905. Over the course of the stage, while the others suffered from both bad luck (Gimondi flatted, Poulidor had a mechanical), crashes (Roger De Vlaeminck) and plain fatigue, Merckx simply rode them off his wheel. The group of riders who hoped to control Merckx in this Tour (particularly Pingeon, Poulidor, Gimondi, Aimar and Gandarias) finished 4 minutes, 21 seconds after the Belgian had soloed to the finish. Galera and Altig had limited their losses to "only" 55 seconds and 115 seconds respectively. It was an extraordinary performance and the high mountains were yet to come.
The General Classification after stage 6:
1. Eddy Merckx
2. Rudi Altig @ 2 minutes 3 seconds
3. Jan Janssen @ 4 minutes 41 seconds
4. Felice Gimondi @ 4 minutes 50 seconds
5. Raymond Poulidor @ 4 minutes 56 seconds
Stage 8a was an individual time trial only 8.8 kilometers long, luckily for the riders in the Tour who weren't named Merckx. He was able to increase his lead slightly, only 2 seconds on Altig but he took a quarter of a minute out of Pingeon and Poulidor.
Stage 8B: Andres Gandarias and Michele Dancelli have escaped and will make to Thonon les Bains almost 2 minutes ahead of the field. Dancelli beat Gandarias by 4 seconds to win the stage.
The Tour hit the first of the high Alps on stage 9, with the Forclaz and Montets ascents. Pingeon was showing a rare bout of self-confidence, believing that Merckx was manageable. The 2 of them escaped on the Forclaz and rode together to the end of the stage. Merckx let the Frenchman go first over both summits and take the sprint. This was a rare bit of charity by Merckx that won't be repeated very often in this book.
The effect of the stage was to bury Janssen, Poulidor and Gimondi and lift Pingeon to second place, a distant 5 minutes, 21 seconds behind Merckx.
The next day's stage, number 10, with the Madeleine, Télégraphe and Galibier climbs was made still harder by terrible weather. Herman van Springel got away successfully on the run-in to Briançon and Merckx led in Wagtmans, Gimondi and Pingeon 2 minutes later. 111 riders were in the race after stage 9. Only 97 finished this hard day, making for 14 abandons. 57 of the stage 10 finishers came in over a half hour after van Springel.
Each day Merckx seemed to take a bite out of his competitors, sometimes a big one, sometimes a smaller one. The fact was that the time lost to Merckx while he was in this indominatable state was irrecoverable. Stage 11 with the Vars and Allos put Pingeon another 22 seconds back when Merckx and Gimondi finished together. No charity given to Gimondi here, Merckx won the stage. Stage 12 brought the Tour into Provence with a final minor climb, the Espigoulier. Merckx and one of his lieutenants, Victor van Schil, broke away with Gandarias and Gimondi, who won the stage. Another chunk of time taken out of the riders who couldn't get into the winning move, this day it was 1 minute, 23 seconds.
After the Alps Merckx had an enviable lead:
1. Eddy Merckx
2. Roger Pingeon @ 7 minutes 11 seconds
3. Felice Gimondi @ 7 minutes 14 seconds
4. Raymond Poulidor @ 11 minutes 9 seconds
5. Andres Gandarias @ 12 minutes 11 seconds
As the Tour cruised through Provence and Languedoc on the way to the Pyrenees 15-minute penalties were given to Rudi Altig, Pierre Matignon and Bernard Guyot after stage 14 for testing positive for dope.
For the rest of the riders the bad news from stage 15 was that Merckx was showing no signs of tiring. He won the 18.5-kilometer time trial handily, relegating Pingeon, Poulidor and Altig about another minute further back while Gimondi lost 93 seconds.
Stages 16 and 17 were the Pyrenean stages. Stage 16's results looked unremarkable even though it had 3 major climbs when Merckx finished fourth behind the winner Raymond Delisle, Jan Janssen and Wladimiro Panizza. The important story of the stage was that he had inflicted more of his terrible math upon his real competitors. Pingeon lost 20 seconds and Gimondi about 30.
Stage 16: Merckx takes off on the Portillion but Raymond Delisle won the stage.
It was on stage 17 that Eddy Merckx etched his name on the granite wall of Tour de France history.
At the start of the stage, here was the General Classification:
1. Eddy Merckx
2. Roger Pingeon @ 8 minutes 21 seconds
3. Felice Gimondi @ 9 minutes 29 seconds
4. Raymond Poulidor @ 12 minutes 46 seconds
With a such a substantial lead, Merckx could easily ride Anquetil- or Indurain-style: just keep the dangermen in sight and preserve and defend the advantage.
The age of Anquetil was over. This was the age of Merckx.
Stage 17 was a 214.5-kilometer epic stage with the Peyresourde, the Aspin, the Tourmalet and the Aubisque. Over the first 2 mountains, Merckx was content to let Joaquin Galera be first over the top.
On the ascent of the Tourmalet with most of the would-be contenders for company, Merckx attacked. Only his teammate and the tallest man in the pro peloton, Martin Vandenbossche, could go with him. The others could only watch.
Over the top of the Tourmalet his lead over his chasers was only a few seconds. On the descent Merckx again showed what a complete rider he was, descending far faster than his chasers. He arrived at the bottom of the Tourmalet alone and a minute ahead of the chasing group. Given the commanding lead Merckx had in the General Classification and the fact that there were still 140 kilometers and the Aubisque left in the stage, the others felt that it was unlikely that Merckx would continue to press his advantage. The initial motivation to drop (actually spank) Vandenbossche and continue alone was Merckx's resentment that Vandenbossche had accepted a contract with another team, Molteni, for the coming year. Vandenbossche was now back in that lead group of chasers, loyally working to protect Merckx.
With 105 kilometers left, Merckx took on food and continued to forge ahead. He later told L'Équipe "I was just 'walking', and when I heard the time gap I decided I had to carry on."
At the top of the Aubisque, wondering if he should wait for help, he was told that he now had a lead of 7 minutes. He decided to keep on with his breakaway. Merckx flew down the hill and over the rolling countryside that stood between him and the finish line.
He crossed that line 7 hours, 4 minutes, 28 seconds after he started. The second rider to finish was Michele Dancelli, 7 minutes, 57 seconds in arrears. Pingeon and Poulidor were right behind Dancelli. In a single day Merckx had about doubled his lead.
Coming in at 14 minutes, 49 seconds was the major group containing Gimondi, van Impe and Agostinho. Taking into account the narrowing differences between riders' abilities that has steadily occurred over the past 100 years, Merckx's 1969 stage 17 ride has to be one of the few Tour exploits that can be considered on par with Coppi's 1952 stage 11 victory.
The new standings showed how Merckx had shattered his rivals:
1. Eddy Merckx
2. Roger Pingeon @ 16 minutes 18 seconds
3. Raymond Poulidor @ 20 minutes 43 seconds
4. Felice Gimondi @ 24 minutes 18 seconds
5. Andres Gandarias @ 29 minutes 35 seconds
When the race climbed Puy de Dôme in stage 20 Merckx would have liked to have won the stage but he woke up too late to realize that a man sitting at the bottom of the standings had taken off on a solo quest to win one of the Tour's most prestigious stages. Aroused, Merckx took off after the now tiring Pierre Matignon (who lost 15 minutes in a doping penalty earlier in the Tour). Utterly exhausted Matignon crossed the line 85 seconds ahead of the flying Belgian. The effects of Merckx's tyrannical attempt to squash a poor flea were to leave the other contenders scattered behind.
That left only the final time trial in Paris and of course it was another Merckx victory. Over 36.8 kilometers he put the day's second-place Poulidor a minute back and cost Pingeon, the year's best challenger, 74 seconds.
Here is the final General Classification of the 1969 Tour de France. Merckx won by the largest margin in 17 years. One has to go back to Fausto Coppi's 28-minute lead over Stan Ockers in the 1952 Tour to find a greater gap.
1. Eddy Merckx: 116 hours 16 minutes 2 seconds
2. Roger Pingeon @ 17 minutes 54 seconds
3. Raymond Poulidor @ 22 minutes 13 seconds
4. Felice Gimondi @ 29 minutes 24 seconds
5. Andres Gandarias @ 33 minutes 4 seconds
Eddy Merckx's domination of the 1969 Tour de France was utter and complete. In an interview in L'Équipe, Merckx said, "I'd love to ride the 1969 Tour again, my first. I'd ride it the same way. It is my most beautiful memory, by a long way."
No doubt.
Bron: BRI, TE, WF, PCS, CN
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