Having dropped time to race leader Bradley Wiggins (Sky Procycling), last year’s race winner Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) and several others in the stages thus far, Jurgen Van den Broeck successfully managed to reduce his deficit somewhat on today’s mountainous stage of the Tour de France.
The Lotto Belisol rider was feeling good and attacked repeatedly. He surged twice on the Grand Colombier, then kicked hard before the summit. Reeled in on the descent, the Belgian tried again and successfully opened a gap on the third category Col de Richemond.
"I tried up three times to attack. Sky was maintaining a tight tempo, so it wasn’t easy to try something, but there won't be so very many chances in this Tour anymore to try something. By going just before the top, I was in front every time to begin the descent.”
Van den Broeck joined forces with last year’s Alpe d’Huez stage winner Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and extended their lead. While the peloton chased behind, the duo rode well to catch Sandy Casar (FDJ-Big Mat) and Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Euskaltel – Euskadi), who had been clear in the day’s break, and reached the finish 32 seconds clear of Wiggins, Evans and the others.
“Together with Rolland I tried to make the gap with the group as big as possible, but that small climb in the end was still tough. I did everything I could, as I said [I would] beforehand,” he stated.
The net result of the effort is that the Belgian improved from ninth to eight in the general classification, and starts tomorrow’s stage four minutes 48 seconds back. He’s still got a lot of ground to make up, but he’d got the determination and form to try.