2023-07-22 16:20:48
Professional cyclist Felix Gall made almost perfect use of his outstanding condition in the Tour de France on the last hard day as second in the stage in the Vosges. The debutant from East Tyrol only had to bow to Tadej Pogacar in the sprint of a group of five in Le Markstein on Saturday. The winner of the queen’s stage left the rest of the world’s elite around the designated overall winner Jonas Vingegaard behind following 133 steep kilometers with six climbs.
Like the day’s win once more, Gall also missed the coveted mountain jersey of the Tour of France as second. The 25-year-old can still celebrate on the traditional lap of honor on Sunday in Paris as eighth overall and third in the junior classification. Likewise the successful defending champion Vingegaard, who is seven and a half minutes ahead of Pogacar before the final on the Champs-Elysees.
While Vingegaard managed to win the favorites once morest his rival Slovenia, who had been weakening in the meantime, as many experts expected, Gall delivered an unexpected performance over the course of the three weeks. His top ten place and the triumphant stage victory in the Alps are rarities for local cycling pros in the more than 100-year history of the world’s largest race. Gall is only the fourth Austrian to have achieved these feats. A red-white-red driver has never managed both.
After Adolf Christian (3rd/1957), Peter Luttenberger (5th/1996) and Georg Totschnig (7th/2004), Gall is the next Austrian in the top ten of the tour. Stage victories before him were only Max Bulla (3/1931), Georg Totschnig (2005) and Patrick Konrad (2021).
The ex-junior world champion, who was already very strong this spring, not only grew into the role of captain of his AG2R team on his first tour of France, but also wore the jersey of the climber with the best points for a day following finishing third in the Pyrenees. In the final ranking of the mountains, Gall took second place behind the Italian Giulio Ciccone, no Austrian before him has done that regularly. Bernhard Kohl was subsequently disqualified in 2008 as jersey winner and third overall because of doping.
Gall tackled the penultimate stage with 3,500 meters in altitude defensively so as not to jeopardize his position in the overall classification. Ciccone once once more made it into the breakaway group and collected enough points for the preliminary decision in the first mountain classifications. In the battle for the day’s victory, Pogacar took the initiative five kilometers before the highest point of the last climb to the Col du Platzerwasel, only Vingegaard and Gall might follow. After the highest point, the trio led by Gall was caught by the British Yates brothers on the almost flat route to the finish. Pogacar’s UAE teammate and third overall Adam Yates proved a key figure in the sprint preparation, his captain finally completing his 11th stage win at the ski resort of Le Markstein, this year being his second.
The section, on the other hand, was painful for Carlos Rodriguez and Vingegaard’s jumbo noble helper Sepp Kuss. They suffered bleeding wounds when they fell together on the first descent. Rodriguez ultimately lost fourth place to Simon Yates, while Kuss dropped from ninth to twelfth place. Gall remained in eighth place, some way back and forth, over 16 minutes behind Vingegaard.
Like Gall, assuming an accident-free final, all other five Austrian participants will also reach the desired finish in Paris. Felix Großschartner excelled as one of Pogacar’s most important mountain helpers, he is 23rd overall before the final day. Konrad played a key role in the temporary takeover of the yellow jersey from his captain Jai Hindley in the first week. However, the stage winner of 2021, like his Bora colleague Marco Haller, Gregor Mühlberger (Movistar) and Michael Gogl (Alpecin), were denied their own sense of achievement in the form of top results.
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