Chapter 352 - 182: Teaming Up with Vingegaard, Taking the First Victory of His Tour de France Career

The starting point was set in Pinerolo, Italy, and the finish line was in Valloire, France.

As a mountain stage, the distance naturally wasn’t too long, at only 139.6 km, but the total elevation gain was a staggering 3,904 meters.

There were only three climbs in total throughout the stage.

The first two were Category 2 climbs, and the last one was an HC Level climb.

The first Category 2 climb was called Sestriere.

Starting from around the 10 km mark of the stage and extending to the 50 km mark, a full 39.2 km of alpine climbing was categorized as part of this climb.

The average gradient was 3.7%, with a maximum gradient reaching 6.8%.

The second Category 2 climb, located at the 71 km mark of the stage, was the Montgenèvre Pass.

Upon reaching this point, the riders had officially entered French territory.

It was 8.3 km long, with an average gradient of 6% and a maximum gradient of 10.2%.

As for the final HC Level climb, it was the famous Galibier Pass climb (Col du Galibier).

It spanned 22.9 km, with an average gradient of 5.1%, and its steepest sections could reach 10%.

The difficulty of this climb lay in the fact that the first 17 km were a relatively gentle ascent, but once into the final 5 km, the average gradient would jump to at least 7-9%.

This was undoubtedly perfect for a rider like Pogačar, known for his outstanding solo abilities, to launch an attack near the summit.

After the race began, since the stage’s only intermediate sprint point was located at the 18.5 km mark, before all the climbs, Mads Pedersen of Trek Team was the first to launch a breakaway.

At the same time, Girmay of Wanty Team quickly followed.

Their goal for participating in the Tour de France was to win the Dash King Green Jersey.

Therefore, in a mountain stage like this, the only intermediate sprint point where they could earn sprint points was their biggest objective.

In the end, after a hard 18 km breakaway, Pedersen successfully took first place for the sprint points, with Girmay crossing the line second.

Having accomplished this goal, they began to drop back to the peloton and ceased their attack.

The true breakaway group of the stage only began to form at this point, quickly pulling away from the peloton on the gentle slope.

They were Cristian Rodríguez and Raúl García from Arkéa Team.

Odd Christian Eiking and Tobias Jorgensen from Uno-X Team.

Stephen Williams from Israel-Premier Tech Team.

Romain Grégoire, David Gaudu, and Valentin Madouas from FDJ Team.

Bruno Amiel from Decathlon Team.

Warren Barguil from Team DSM.

Kobe Goossens from Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux Team.

Julian Benner from Trek Team.

Christopher Juul Jensen from Jieke Team.

Oier Lascano from Movistar Team.

Mathieu Burgaudeau from TotalEnergies Team.

Mathieu van der Poel from Alpecin Team.

And Alexey Lutsenko from Astana Team, among others.

Faced with such a star-studded breakaway group, UAE Team, having their own ambitions for the stage today, naturally wouldn’t let the breakaway build too large of a time gap.

They directly sent two of their domestiques, Wellens and Soler, to control the pace on the climb, not even bothering to let the Yellow Jersey-holding Red Bull Bora Team lead at the front.

After the climb officially began, what could only be described as terrible news for Visma Team arrived: Van Aert, who had a stunning performance in the first hilly stage of the Tour de France and ultimately finished fourth, was dropped right at the start of the Category 2 climb.

This completely confirmed what he himself had said in a pre-race interview:

This was the worst form he’d been in for any Tour de France he had participated in.

At the time, all the teams thought he was just putting up a smokescreen, especially after S1 Stage, when his form had been surprisingly good—

But looking at it now, his words were the unvarnished truth.

Huang Chong, as someone with experience, had known for a long time that after his crash at Crossing Flanders, Van Aert’s form had indeed been declining with every race.

In subsequent races, he would even suffer more crashes.

It was as if he had suddenly entered a state of old age, unable to even keep up with his reaction time.

This also fully demonstrated the cruelty of competitive sports.

Age plus injury could truly destroy any top athlete.

No matter how dazzling they once were in their youth, like a meteor streaking across the vast, boundless night sky, emitting a brilliant and splendid light.

「The race continued.」

With Soler of UAE Team gritting his teeth at the front, his jersey unzipped and bared to the wind, the time gap between the peloton and the breakaway group was held steady at just over two minutes, never widening further.

By the time the race reached the second Category 2 climb, most of the breakaway riders had already been caught.

Afterwards, Soler continued his frantic pace-setting at the front of the peloton.

This continued until 5.4 km from the HC Level climb, the Galibier Pass, when Adam Yates moved to the front of the group and the last breakaway rider, Lascano, was mercilessly reeled in.

But in truth, as the peloton entered this section, the true difficulty of the HC Level climb was only just beginning.

Because from here to the summit, it would be an extremely difficult climb with an average gradient starting at 7%.

Huang Chong glanced at the lead group he was in and saw that only about 20 riders remained.

’All of my team’s domestiques have been dropped one after another during Soler’s frantic chase.’

’Sindel, Vlasov... I can’t see a single familiar face.’