The Tour de France bus had problems during stage nine. A large group of riders, including the green jersey Mark Cavendish, arrived at Tignes just in time. Runners Arnaud Démare and Bryan Coquard arrived late, as did five others, including our compatriot Loïc Vliegen.
Weather and road conditions made this stage a dangerous trek to meet the time limit for non-climbers and it showed. Even Julian Alaphilippe had only a few minutes of grace on that.
The group with Cavendish, accompanied by teammates De Klerk and Murkoff, eventually crossed the line by 1’29” at the limit.
According to the Pro Cycling Stats website for cycling data, our compatriots barely entered Van Avermaet, Campenaerts and Walays five seconds before the max.
According to French media, nineteen passengers could have been very close to the limit, and at least seven of them were late. Also Arnaud Démare and Bryan Coquard, French runners. Our compatriot Loic Flegin, Jacobo Guarnieri, Stephane de Bode, Nick Dlamini and Anthony Delablas could not finish the match on time. The jury was tough and decided not to hunt the knights.
19 missions
There are already nineteen withdrawals in the Tour de France after just nine days of racing. We should really go back to 2012, when twenty riders had to leave the race after nine stages.
- Ignatas Konovalovas (Groupama-FDJ): valpartij
- Jasha Suterlin (DSM Team): Crash
- Cyril Lemoine (B&Bs): Crash
- Mark Soller (Movistar): Crash
- Robert Jesink (Jumbo-Visma): Crash
- Jack Haig (Bahrain – victor): Crash
- Caleb Ewan (Loto Soudal): Crash
- Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma): Crash
- Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix): other targets
- Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix): Abandoned
- Jasper de Boist (Loto Soudal): deserted
- Nans Peters (AG2R-Citroën): deserted
- Brian Cockard (B&B): Lead time
- Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ): tijdslimiet
- Stefan de Bode (Astana): Time limit
- Jacopo Guarnieri (Groupama-FDJ): Time Limit
- Anthony Delaplace (Arkea-Samsic): Time limit
- Nicholas Dlamini (Assos affiliate): tijdslimiet
- Loïc Vliegen (Intermarché-Wanty Gobert): Time limit
Newcomer to the South African Tour, Nick Dlamini, had long known he wasn’t going to finish on time today.
However, he refused to give up.
About an hour later, he still crossed the line. pic.twitter.com/ejsekVe2v4
– NOS cycling (NOS cycling) 4 July 2021
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