“Mark Cavendish has withdrawn from the Le Tour”.
Advertisement
This time around he is 2min 59sec behind but he said there is no point attacking Froome if you’re not sure to make a difference, as happened to him on the 12th stage finish on Mont Ventoux.
Chris Froome (Team Sky) retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey after finishing in the leading pack in a twisting course finale in the Swiss capital.
Cavendish, 31, won four stages this year and now has 30 wins overall as he edges ever closer to Belgian legend Eddy Merckx’s all-time record of 34 stage wins.
“Other teams have said they’re going to attack this week in the Alps and I expect they will”, he said.
Another Norwegian, Sondre Holst Enger (IAM Cycling), took third place.
World champion Sagan pipped Alexander Kristoff on the line in a thrilling finish to the 209km ride from Moirans-en-Montagne to Bern, Switzerland overnight.
As Mollema said: “I think for them it would be disappointing with a team like that, and the budget they have, if they didn” t win the Tour, ‘ said Mollema.
Although Froome and Sky put on a commanding performance on Sunday’s four-and-a-half hour trek through the Jura mountains, the Briton argued he lacks real reference points for how he and the other top rivals will fare on the Alpine climbs to come.
“I believe that Froome and his rivals are more or less on the same level in the mountains this year”, Unzue said. “To say the Tour is won and I don’t have any rivals, that’s rubbish”. Although the stage win will be up for grabs on the Sunday in Paris, the overall victor of the Tour and the yellow jersey will be decided by the end of Saturdays stage in Morzine.
“All in all, thankfully we can tick [the stage] off now and be grateful we have a rest day tomorrow and definitely soak that up and look forward to the Alps in next few days”. The 26-year-old road bicycle racer had certainly pushed the boundaries of the sport in this year’s Tour de’ France, not wanting to just get left behind.
“I think the race has been that hard”.
Two-time victor Chris Froome is sitting in fifth with just six seconds between him and second place. “In my eyes Tony deserves the award much more than me because I was just clinging on behind him”, joked Alaphilippe after the race.
Advertisement
That provoked a counter-attack from former world champion Rui Costa of Portugal, but he was caught 4.5km from the finish, and thereafter it was all about Sagan and Kristoff.
