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Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla) delivered a surprising dash to win stage 6 of the Tour de France in a photograph end, beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) narrowly to the road in Dijon.
A busy run to the road noticed Alpecin-Deceuninck convey again their finest leadout from 2023 with World Champion Mathieu van der Poel delivering Philipsen in splendid place to launch for the road. But exploding with extra velocity out of Arnaud De Lie’s wheel behind him was Groenewegen, who held off the Belgian with a to bike throw.
Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) maintained his high sprinting type with third on the day within the inexperienced jersey however he lacked the top-end velocity to match the larger man Groenewegen.
This was the Dutchman’s first win on the Tour since stage 3 of the 2022 race and his sixth profession win on the French Grand Tour.
“I’m actually blissful. The feeling is so wonderful, within the purple white and blue jersey – earlier than I stated it might be a fantastic image however it was that shut that I couldn’t have a good time on the end line,” stated Groenewegen who celebrated previous the final together with his teammates when it was confirmed he’d gained.
“In the tip, we grabbed it and the crew labored so arduous, additionally the final days. Yesterday I used to be disenchanted in myself as a result of the crew did a extremely good job. Today we nailed it once more. In the ultimate kilometres, we stayed calm and went on the proper second. Then I received into the slipstream and I really do not know what occurred however I used to be first.”
Uno-X Mobility had been the best-placed crew within the closing kilometre after a frantic closing method noticed Asatan Qazaqstan and Mark Cavendish washed out of rivalry for stage quantity 36, till Alpecin moved up with Van der Poel and Philipsen. But final 12 months’s high sprinter on the Tour didn’t have sufficient for the highly effective Dutchman.
“It slowed down just a bit bit. It was Uno-X and Alpecin combating for place, then I went and I feel it was Philipsen was on the best and we had been sprinting subsequent to one another. I really like these sprints subsequent to one another and I beat him simply on the end line, in order that’s good,” stated Groenewegen.
“Yesterday I used to be actually disenchanted in myself. I did not even dash. Now right now now we have a victory. A victory within the first week means quite a bit to me and in addition for the crew. The dash subject is basically robust, all of the lead-out groups are actually robust. I’m so pleased with how we did right now and hopefully, we are able to do it as soon as extra once more.”
After a day which posed fixed threats of echelons en route heading from Mâcon within the crosswinds, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) arrived safely within the bunch after one other chaotic finale, regardless of being remoted earlier within the day in one of many splits.
It uncovered a weak spot in UAE’s climbing-heavy roster, because the yellow jersey rode alone within the entrance group till racing got here again collectively 70km from the road, with Visma-Lease a Bike and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe dominating the echelons. No injury was achieved to the highest 10 however Visma will like what they noticed within the battle for total victory as Juan Ayuso and João Almeida struggled on the flat.
More to come back …
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