{"id":174631,"date":"2019-07-11T09:19:31","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T09:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=174631"},"modified":"2019-07-11T09:19:31","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T09:19:31","slug":"on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/07\/11\/on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"On La Grande Boucle: A Great Tour for France So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first week of the 2019 Tour de France was a very good one for the host country, with 27-year-old Julian Alaphilippe, of the French Deceuninck-Quick Step team, becoming the first Frenchman to wear the race leader\u2019s yellow jersey since 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His bold breakaway on a short climb near the end of the third stage sent French TV commentators into raptures and had them musing that this may be the year that a French rider \u2013 any French rider \u2013 could be wearing the yellow jersey on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es when the race ends, on July 28. A reminder: no French rider has won the Tour since Bernard Hinault, in 1985 \u2013 34 years ago.<\/p>\n

Following Chris Froome\u2019s horrifying training crash, which left him unable to compete, this year\u2019s race is unusually open \u2013 even though last year\u2019s winner, Geraint Thomas of Froome\u2019s Team Ineos, must be considered a slight favourite to repeat the deed. But his team\u2019s second-place finish in the team time trial, on Sunday\u2019s second stage, has raised questions about whether it will dominate the race as it has six in the past seven years when it was known as Team Sky.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Can Geraint Thomas defend the title? \u00a9 Profimedia, Polaris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Surprisingly, Thomas has not looked sharp so far and appears to be trying to find his legs in the early stages. Thursday\u2019s race, with its six difficult climbs and a mountaintop finish, will reveal much about his fitness and about who is likely to shine in the latter part of the Tour, when the riders tackle the Pyrenees and the Alps where the Tour de France is decided.<\/p>\n

The team time trial was one of the many surprises the first week of the Tour has produced. The Dutch Jumbo-Visma team beat Ineos by 20 seconds, which is quite a lot for a 27.6-km race. Jumbo-Visma therefore claimed its second surprising stage win, after Mike Teunissen won the sprint to the finish of the first stage, nipping perennial green jersey winner Peter Sagan by a whisker.<\/p>\n

If a French rider will end the home country\u2019s long victory drought, it is likely to be Thibaut Pinot, of the Groupama-FDJ team. The 29-year-old has had an excellent spring, winning the Tour de \u2018Ain and the Tour du Haut Var. He skipped the Giro d\u2019Italia and appeared to have been pointing to the Tour from the start of the year. He finished third in the 2014 Tour but has not finished the race since then, skipping it last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Peter Sagan is already wearing green. \u00a9 Profimedia, AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Pinot should win, it would represent a wonderful novelty for a race that has been, for most of this century, far too predictable. Lance Armstrong and Team Sky riders have won 12 of the previous 18 races, all in much the same fashion so that the Tour often seemed like a very long and exhausting victory parade, rather than a competition. This year\u2019s race has begun with surprises, and if we are lucky it will continue to surprise us to the end.<\/p>\n

However, based on Wednesday\u2019s fifth stage, there will be no surprising green jersey winner. The ease with which Slovakia\u2019s Peter Sagan outdistanced his rivals in the sprint to the finish suggests that the 29-year-old Bora-Hansgrohe rider is in his usual excellent form and, barring injury or accident, is likely to become the first rider to win seven Tour de France points classification titles. Unless, of course, the race has another surprise in store for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first week of the 2019 Tour de France was a very good one for the host country, with 27-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":174632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[3226,2396,1080,1887,381,1098],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-174631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-2019-tour","tag-2019-tour-de-france","tag-geraint-thomas","tag-julian-alaphilippe","tag-peter-sagan","tag-thibaut-pinot"],"yoast_head":"\nOn La Grande Boucle: A Great Tour for France So Far - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first week of the 2019 Tour de France was a very good one for the host country, with 27-year-old Julian Alaphilippe, of the French Deceuninck-Quick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/07\/11\/on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On La Grande Boucle: A Great Tour for France So Far\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first week of the 2019 Tour de France was a very good one for the host country, with 27-year-old Julian Alaphilippe, of the French Deceuninck-Quick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/07\/11\/on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-11T09:19:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2019\/07\/Alaphilippe-CVR-profimedia-0456866425.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Siegfried Mortkowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/07\/11\/on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/07\/11\/on-la-grande-boucle-a-great-tour-for-france-so-far\/\",\"name\":\"On La Grande Boucle: A Great Tour for France So Far - 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