2023-07-10 12:47:00
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The SRF cycling duo Marco Felder (commentator) and David Loosli (expert) look back on the first week of the Tour de France and dare to look ahead.
Already on the 1st stage, the two big tour favorites flexed their muscles for the first time. Tadej Pogacar (SLO/Team Emirates) and last year’s winner Jonas Vingegaard (DEN/Jumbo-Visma) broke the field with their start on the short, poisonous climb to the Côte de Pike. Adam Yates (GBR) took the day’s win. But Pogacar and Vingegaard had set the tone.
«It was driven towards the overall classification from the start. The riders put on a great spectacle,” SRF cycling expert David Loosli looks back on the first 9 stages. He calls the duel between the two tour favorites an “open exchange of blows”. Marco Felder, SRF Rad commentator, agrees: “The overall classification riders got into action very early on. That really spiced things up.”
Pogacar vs. Vingegaard also promises spectacle in week 2
The duel Pogacar vs. Vingegaard has actually been something of an open exchange of blows so far. The Slovenian distanced the Dane a bit on the first two stages thanks to bonus seconds, before Vingegaard hit back on the 5th stage and Pogacar lost more than a minute. But this should not be a small preliminary decision. By the 1st day of rest on Monday, Pogacar has reduced its gap to the maillot jaune, which Vingegaard conquered on stage 6, to 17 seconds.
In the 2nd week of the tour, the difficult Alpine stages in particular promise even more spectacle on ranks 1 and 2. “The momentum is currently with the Emirates and Pogacar teams. They will try to get yellow,” believes Loosli. “Both drivers will try to exploit every little weakness of the other,” says Felder.
Dillier and Küng, the hard-working helpers
From a Swiss point of view, the tour has so far been unspectacular. Both Silvan Dillier (Alpecin) and Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) were, as expected, absorbed in helping out and were unable to stage themselves on their own. Nevertheless, Dillier had several reasons to celebrate. Because team colleague Jasper Philipsen from Belgium – one of the positive tour surprises so far – gave the team no less than 3 day victories (all in the sprint).
One can assume that Dillier and Küng will also have to put themselves fully at the service of the team in the 2nd and 3rd week. “Let’s see if someone gets some exercise,” says Felder: “But you shouldn’t expect much, because they’re just there as helpers.”
You can find out what the positive and negative surprises of the 1st tour week are in the video above.
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