🎥 @LeTour STAGE 9 🎥 It’s a cagey battle on the Puy de Dôme ⚔️ Yatesy fights through the pain to take back time 👊 but now it’s time to enjoy the rest day 😴 #TDF2023
"The rest day has come at a good time" claims Simon Yates after brutal Puy de Dôme climb
CyclingMonday, 10 July 2023 at 19:00
A solid opening 9 stages has seen Team Jayco AlUla's Simon Yates ride to a 6th placed position in the general classification at the first rest day, just two minutes off a place on the podium.
A former Vuelta a Espana winner, Yates knows all about the rigours of a three-week Grand Tour. These races are very rarely won before the first rest day but they can certainly be lost. 4:44 down on overall leader Jonas Vingegaard, the Maillot Jaune is probably a lost cause for Yates. Just 2:04 behind third-placed Jai Hindley however the battle for the final spot on the podium is very much alive.
"I still had a lot of pain throughout the stage," Yates said after finishing best of the rest in terms of the general classification riders, behind Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar on the stage 9 summit finish atop Puy de Dome, referencing his stage 8 crash. "It wasn't so bad when I was standing out of the saddle, which is how I like riding most of the time and on a steep climb like this it's not so bad. That was quite lucky, but like I said a lot of discomfort throughout the day. The rest day has come at a good time, so I'll try and recover as best as possible and then we'll go from there."
"I think you've seen the difference in level between those two guys and the guys behind. I think it's quite close between the rest of us," Yates continues, admitting that third is now his main goal for the race. "I unfortunately crashed and lost almost a minute so that's not great for myself. But in terms of climbing and how we've been riding, I think it's quite close. I got some time on Jai today and a little bit of Rodríguez as well. We'll see how that plays out over the coming weeks but who knows?"
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024 - So he read the comments here probably :-)DareDevil17-11-2024
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024
- Pointless reporting. They are rivals, each tries their way to get their best result, with or without collaboration. As long as it’s all fair, why even report riders feelings about such stuff (yes I know, lack of other news). Anyone riding races will go through dozens of moments per race where they get emotional about the way someone else rides or takes advantage or doesn’t collaborate or more, it is natural, it is justified, it is NOT newsworthy!Mistermaumau17-11-2024
- I like that you can see you actually replied to you and not just to the same thread. :)Sweep16-11-2024