The German top sprinter Phil Bauhaus shines on a bloody stage, which is mainly overshadowed by the severe fall of the Belgian Jasper Philipsen.
When Phil Bauhaus grinded the first German tour coup for 75 stages, the fastest man of the Tour de France had long been on the way to the hospital: the 112nd tour of France was overshadowed by a series of very bad falls on Monday, the worst caught the Belgian top sprinter Jasper Philipsen. The stage success of his compatriot Tim Merlier in Dunkirchen had a thread aftertaste.
There was a lot of frustration in the finish line: Philipsen’s team -mate Mathieu van der Poel defended the yellow jersey of the overall leader after 178.3 km on the canal coast, which could hardly be serious in view of the bitter departure of his buddy.
Bauhaus was also only able to look forward to his strong third place. The 30-year-old came up with a lot on the home stretch, but no longer quite to Merlier and the second-placed Italian Jonathan Milan. “In the end, I lacked the power a bit,” said Bauhaus, who had already become second in the previous year: “But third place is already good.” Bauhaus, after all, remained Heil on Monday, that was far from being for everyone.
60 km before the target of a previously boring stage there was a lot of crashed on the straight Départemts-Straße 186 in the village of Isbergues: the Frenchman Bryan Coquard, team-mate of Emanuel Buchmann at Cofidis, fell on the first intermediate sprint at Vollspeed and cleared the guiltless and chanceless philipses. This crashed on his back, under the torn jersey, large bleeding wounds emerged. It quickly became clear: it doesn’t go on.
This ended the dream start of the Alpecin team suddenly. Philipsen won the first stage and yellow on Saturday, van der Poel on Sunday and took over the overall lead, Philipsen continued in the green jersey of the best best sprint.
There were also violent falls in the final
In the final it crashed again, among other things, Belgium’s Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel fell down. While the previous year’s third, Jordi Meeuws, the top sprinter of the Red Bull team, probably caught it.
While Bauhaus was satisfied with third place, Pascal Ackermann only ranked ninth. “My legs are right, really good,” said Ackermann at the start of the stage in Valenciennes – at the target sprint on Saturday in Lille, they fell asleep. The 31 -year -old had celebrated his only win of the season at the “Classic Dunkerque” in Dunkirk in mid -May – he could not build on that. Since Nils Politt 2021 in Nimes there has been no German stage victory.
After the start of the stage in the new, typical North French, dirty weather with only slowly declining rain happened practically nothing in the first hours of race. It only became eventful late – especially in an unsightly way.
On Tuesday, the tour crosses “van-der-poel-Terrain” again: the final third of the 174.2 km on the way to the old cathedral city of Rouen offer the classic profile that the Dutchman loves so much. Five mountain ratings are waiting for the last 50 km, the dreaded ramp from Saint-Hillaire shortly before the finish is up to 16 percent steep. This is of course also defending champion Tadej Pogacar – only questionable how much the classification favorites want to invest in Caen before the first time trial on Wednesday.