The toughest stage of the Tour de France lay ahead of the peloton on Thursday afternoon with over 5500 meters of climbing spread throughout the 171 kilometre-long route. With the Col du Glandon, Col de la Madeleine and a summit finish on Col de la Loze it was set to be a brutal day of racing.
From the start the race was controlled until the intermediate sprint point, where the attacks then started and the race already blew to pieces on the lower slopes of the Col du Glandon. Frank van den Broek got up the road in a counter-move, while Warren Barguil remained in the ever-thinning yellow-jersey peloton alongside Oscar Onley. Van den Broek’s move was reeled in on the Col de la Madeleine, where the pace really increased towards the top, with the attacks flying. Onley had to let go of the wheels and ride at his own tempo, but Barguil and Van den Broek were not far behind, and the Team Picnic PostNL trio got together over the top.
Some incredible chase work from Barguil and Van den Broek brought the Team Picnic PostNL high-speed express train back to the yellow jersey group ahead of the final long climb up to Col de la Loze. On the ascent the screw was slowly turned in the yellow jersey group and one-by-one riders dropped from the group, but a determined Onley dug deep and stayed there. Gritting his teeth, Onley was able to follow a stinging attack by Vingegaard and found himself alongside him and Pogacar, as the last three riders from the GC group. Pogacar kicked once more and created a gap, but Onley fought all the way to the line to take an exceptional fourth place on the stage. With that, he gained one minute and 39 seconds on third placed Lipowitz, and now sits just 22 seconds off a podium spot in GC with just one big mountain test to go.
At the finish an empty Onley said: “I just did what I could there, I gave it my everything. On the Col de la Madeline it was tough. I felt good but I’m just not at the level of those guys when they attack really all out, and I think it showed at the end of the stage that they went pretty hard up there. The team did a super job to then bring me back ahead of the last climb. From there, I just dug in and gave what I had to the line. The gap now to the podium isn’t much, so we’ll give it everything we have tomorrow to see if we can get on there.”
Team Picnic PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “I am really happy with how the boys performed today. It was a really hard stage. Oscar couldn’t follow the moves on the Madeleine and had to pace himself a little bit there. He was with quite a few riders but unfortunately no one wanted to ride with him so over the top and after the descent we decided to wait in the valley for Frank and Warren to come back. They then could bring Oscar back to the peloton which they did in a really good way and were able to set him up for the final climb, where everything could change on its head. Oscar was really on top of his nutrition today and that put him back into the mix for that final climb. What a fantastic ride it was by him on the climb in the end, finishing fourth on the stage and we move to within 22 seconds of the podium. We can be really proud and happy of that as a team, and we’ll try our best to move up one step further.”