Stage 10 Tour de France, Pello Bilbao wins in Issoire

ISSOIRE – A true day Tours, in the very hot heart of France, without a meter of plain. Under Massif Central, here is the Vulcania-Issoire, without major climbs but also all up and down, curves, pitfalls, in a majestic landscape. A breakaway day by definition, and in fact whoever dared from afar, practically from the start, won. Skin Bilbao he was dying for this Tour, which started from his Basque country and also passed through his hometown, Guernica. A few days late, the Basque from Bahrain Victorious puts his wheel ahead of his breakaway companions Zimmermann And O’Connor. The group takes it easy and arrives after 2’53”. Success and good gain in the standings for Bilbao, who climbed up to 5th place in the general standings.

The record

Ready away and the escape begins. Inside there are also high-ranking players like Bilbao, Skjlemose and O’Connor, but the yellow jersey group lets it go, giving the small group an advantage that never exceeds 4 minutes.
Five gpm and on the last one, the Cote de la Chapelle Marcuse, the Latvian of Israel Premier Tech Krists Neilands isolates himself. Ineos and Jumbo shoot without much conviction, just to keep Bilbao at a safe distance, but never for the stage. Short outing of about ten km together for the most close-knit couple of these years, Mathieu Van der Poel and Wout Van Aert: the Belgian resists a little longer, then lets himself be reabsorbed by the group and takes the lead in the last very fast descent towards Issoire, where the Tour had only arrived once, in 1983.

The last 10km are the only ones on the flat and Neilands has to manage 15” out of a group of 5 with Bilbao, O’Connor, Zimmermann, Pedrero and Chaves. Too many, for the Latvian, resumed at -3. A group of 6 forms but from behind the second part of the men on the run tries to come back, four other heavy names: Alaphilippe, Kwiatkowski, Skjlemose and Barguil. But they don’t make it in time: Zimmermann starts at the last km, with Bilbao behind him, they don’t make a difference but they gain that minimum advantage for the final sprint. And so the Basque Pello Bilbao wins, bringing Spain back to triumph in a stage of the Tour after 5 years. Overall unchanged, with the usual 17” between Vingegaard and Pogacar. Tomorrow easier stage, with arrival in Moulins