Nine seconds between the first and second riders on GC after stage 13 in the Tour de France is the sixth smallest gap in the history after 1’’ between Cadel Evans and Fränk Schleck in 2008, 3’’ between Raphaël Geminiani and Vito Favero in 1958, 6’’ between Rinaldo Nocentini and Alberto Contador in 2009, 6’’ also between Fabio Aru and Chris Froome in 2017 and 7’’ between Laurent Fignon and Greg LeMond in 1989. After two hors-category gruelling uphill finishes at Puy de Dôme and Grand Colombier, comes the first Alpine stage featuring several climbs and finishing in a downhill, so it’ll be a very different kind of race. Again, there can be two races, one for the stage win from far out and one for the GC, mostly another fight between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. The Dane whose advantage keeps decreasing since he took the yellow jersey at Cauterets on stage 6 with a 25’’ gap believes he’ll feel more at ease in a succession of climbs. He has clearly preserved his team-mates yesterday in order to have a full team backing him in Joux-Plane, the last climb before Morzine that awards 8’’, 5’’ and 2’’ bonus, whereas UAE Team Emirates have spent a lot of energy for a fairly small gain at Grand Colombier.
