A bold winning move
Sure, he finished third in Sunday’s stage 2 summit finish and therefore stood third in the GC, 8 seconds behind Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike). But that must have been a fluke, right? And the man is not a sprinter, certainly not one of Pedersen’s level. So what’s going on?
For one thing, Gaudu made one of the most audacious moves you’ll ever see in a bike race when, trailing both Pedersen and Vingegaard with just 75 meters left to ride, he dropped to the inside of both riders on the final sharp curve of the uphill finish, saving several meters, and came out of that tight turn as if shot out of a cannon. He passed his rivals with several pedal strokes and scored one of the biggest upsets of this cycling year. And he hadn’t even thought about going for the win when he woke up Monday morning, but a helpful teammate changed his mind.
“I was thinking, on the bus this morning, it was more for Pedersen, but [Stefan] Küng said to me this morning that I have a punch and I can win today,” the still grinning Gaudu told TNT Sports after the finish. He also gave credit to his team, who made sure that he was near the front of the peloton when the race reached the final climb (2.5 km @ 3.2%).
“The team did a very, very, very good job,” he said. “They kept us in the first position all day. So I’m very happy. I’m very, very proud to win for me, for the team. This is, I think, the best start to the Vuelta we could get.”
In his exhilaration, Gaudu no doubt forgot that one of Groupama’s main GC hopes, Guillaume Martin, broke two vertebrae in a crash on stage 2 and had to abandon the race. That makes Gaudu’s early success a real morale boost for the Groupama-FDJ squad.
Asked about his strategy for that final rush to the finish line, he said that it was all instinct. “When I [saw] Pedersen launching the sprint at 200-250 meters, I disconnected totally on the last corner, and pushed all my limits to the finish line,” he explained.
A first-ever Grand Tour lead
He was then tied with Vingegaard for the race lead in terms of time, but stood second in the GC because of comparative placements in earlier stages. But the party continued for Gaudu after the bunch sprint finish of Tuesday’s stage 4, in which he finished 25th, the same time as Vingegaard. But the Dane finished 42nd, far enough behind the Frenchman to reverse the placement advantage and put Gaudu into the race leader’s red jersey, a first for him in a Grand Tour. And he achieved that on home soil, in the French town of Voiron, where the stage finished after the Vuelta had spent the first three and a half days in Italy.
After his podium ‘coronation’, a grinning Gaudu told TNT Sports, “For sure, [going for red] was in my mind this morning, but I don’t really know if I fight for position in the bunch sprint because it is very, very dangerous. But with the feeling I had at the finish, I just went for it. The team did an incredible job. When I was on the podium, it was incredible, with the French fans… It’s just incredible and one of the best moments of my career.”
Gaudu’s career certainly needed a “best moment”, though he began it in the best possible way, winning the Tour de l’Avenir and the U23 Tour de la Paix in 2016. That same year, he finished fifth in the Tour de l’Ain. The following year, he finished second in that race, behind fellow Frenchman and then FDJ teammate Thibaut Pinot. He also won his first professional victory in that race, taking stage 3. The belief began to grow in France that he could be someone special.
From injuries to redemption
But he was never able to live up to the expectations of a country that was starving for a great French Grand Tour rider. He has ridden the Tour de France seven times, with his best GC showing a fourth in 2022. But there were performances that hinted that he could still fulfil his promise. He finished eighth in the 2020 Vuelta and sixth last year. However, injuries have played too large a part in his progress.
He crashed on stage 1 of the 2020 Tour de France and was forced to withdraw. But he recovered and placed eighth in that year’s Vuelta. In the 2022 Paris-Nice, he crashed and broke a vertebra, but was then well enough to finish fourth in that year’s Tour. Ironically, this year has been his worst year for injuries. Early in the year, Gaudu injured a gluteal muscle during a training crash, then fractured his left hand in March in a crash at Tirreno-Adriatico. Finally, he injured his right hand in a crash at the Giro, when he was infamously told by a race commissaire to stop holding onto the medical car while having a gaping wound treated. Gaudu could be heard shouting, “I have a hole in my hand.” He was due to ride this year’s Tour, but withdrew before the race started because of his many injuries and his bad form.
Yet here he is, after a most difficult year, leading a Grand Tour for the first time and eyeball to eyeball with the great Jonas Vingegaard. No one is suggesting that Gaudu can beat Vingegaard in the race, but the man who was once considered one of France’s great hopes for Grand Tour success has apparently found his second wind.
