The headwind stops the offensive on the Tour bridge

taketonews

  • Sprint triumph for Fabio Jakobsen, the cyclist who almost lost his life two years ago in Poland.

  • Wout van Aert wears yellow for the first time.

The wind influences as a rival or an ally in a cycling race. There were nerves at the start of the second stage of the Tour. All the directors had gotten up early, like the sun in Denmark, and they were all writing down the data that their personal meteorologists gave them. Those who were only going to cross the Great Belt Bridge, 18 kilometers between the Baltic and North SeaKnowing that it was Comanche territory for them, they breathed easy. The air would blow in your face. Goodbye to a full-fledged offensive. Goodbye to suffering more than necessary in the second stage that there is still a world with all of France to go through.

The Movistar cyclists breathed easy because they are made for the mountains and not for bridges and strange roads. They had been too cautious in the initial Copenhagen time trial because moderation prevailed more, that is, not going down, than rushing and risking like the rest did. They will know what they are doing.

And they blew, perhaps more than the wind on a bridge that was not cursed, because they knew that there they had much to lose and nothing to gain. he went there Enrique More perfectly protected by Imanol Erviti, Nelson Oliveira and Albert Torres. He could even be more aware of the patches he wears on his arm. If someone looks at television, when they focus on him, he will see that the Majorcan cyclist he wears small white bandages on his elbows. It is not that it has fallen but that it is about some patches that take the temperature of the body and then control issues such as the dehydration suffered during a stage. Cycling not only advances to the rhythm of the pedals but of science.

There were falls but the main one, the most striking, occurred when the cyclists had already left the bridge and, fortunately for all of them, they were in the protection zone, because if you fall or cut yourself in the last three kilometers, except in the mountain stages, you are given the same time as the winner, this Saturday Fabio Jakobsen, the cyclist who came back to life after the brutal fall suffered in the Tour of Poland in August 2020. He’s here too Dylan Groenewegen -eighth in the sprint- the runner who knocked him down with an unpresentable maneuver and sent him to the UCI, and not precisely the international federation, months of recovery, surgical interventions… a drama.

all cut

There was no leader who was not cut, since Plus to Tadej Pogacar, who also punctured the rear wheel. But for them, falling behind because of the fall was almost a respite, a relaxation to forget about the dangers that a sprint always entails and reach the finish line almost at a cycling pace to enjoy the incredible atmosphere that is accompanying the Tour in this Danish visit that ends this Sunday very close to the German border.

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Two days of Tour and two victories of the set QuickStep, which is amortizing the tremendous disappointment that it meant for them to have to face the Tour without Julian Alaphilippe, the hero of all French people who love cycling. He could not recover from the serious crash suffered in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and had to give up the race that excites him the most. On Friday they surprisingly won the time trial with Yves Lampertwhich fell to the ground on the bridge, and this Saturday with Jacobsen.

And it was also the second Danish stage that served Wout van Aert, the (almost) perfect cyclist to wear yellow for the first time on the Tour, thanks to the bonuses and his second place in Nyborg. Van Aert He is one of those cyclists who, if they did not exist, would have to be invented and who must be loved beyond the flag they represent. If I climbed mountains it would already be a kind of Pogacar and almost an Eddy Merckx in essence between mud, classics and stage victories. One hundred percent genius.



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