Towards Bologna, on Sunday, in stage 2 of the 2024 Tour de France, Quentin Pacher believed that it could be his day. After making it into the day’s breakaway, which was free to fight for victory, the 32-year-old puncher tried to play his cards as best he could on the finishing circuit including the San Luca climb. However, he was trapped on a flat section, about twenty kilometres from the finish, and was then unable to challenge Kévin Vauquelin for the win. Combative as usual, he still fought hard to take third place, his best career result on the Tour.
One couldn’t have a conservative approach this Sunday leaving Cesenatico. On stage two of the Tour de France, the fight for the breakaway proved quite short. It only took five kilometres for eleven men to hit the front, and Quentin Pacher was one of them, after standing out among the day’s first attackers. As the bunch didn’t show a will to properly chase, the leading group gradually took time as it headed towards Bologna, over 200 kilometres and across six climbs. Alongside the Groupama-FDJ rider, there were Kévin Vauquelin, Cristian Rodriguez, Mike Teunissen, Hugo Houle, Bram Welten, Jonas Abrahamsen, Harold Tejada, Nelson Oliveira, Jordan Jegat and Axel Laurance. “They worked together well all the time,” explained Frédéric Guesdon, present in the car behind the breakaway. “They understood that we had to get along to make it, and that’s what they did.” Although their gap went up and down, it still approached the symbolic ten-minute bar with sixty kilometres to go. However, the peloton paced up in the first two climbs of the final, and even became a threat to the breakaway at some point.
“It was the win or nothing”, Quentin Pacher
At the first time on the finish line in Bologna, before the two climbs of San Luca (1.9 km at 10.4%), the gap was indeed reduced to four minutes. The fight in the breakaway therefore began shortly after. “It was the win or nothing,” claimed Quentin. “I went up quite fast on the first climb of the Basilica. With the two Arkéa-B&B Hotels and this large group, I was a little afraid of the transition part between the two climbs. I preferred to make a first selection and find myself in a smaller group that works together.” The first climb ruled out four riders at the front, but only temporarily. The breakaway of ten reformed on the descent, where some accelerations took place. “What I had imagined happened,” Quentin added. “In the transition portion, we started to look at each other, then there were some attacks and we got trapped.” After following a first acceleration from Oliveira, then closing another attack from Teunissen, Quentin Pacher was unable to catch the Portuguese’s wheel when the latter went away with Vauquelin and Abrahamsen twenty-two kilometres from the line.
“We are obviously a bit disappointed”, Frédéric Guesdon
While the peloton slowed down a little, thus ensuring a victory for the breakaway, Quentin Pacher suffered from a lack of collaboration behind the leading trio. “We quickly understood that it was over,” Frédéric said. “They got along well up front, and with thirty seconds of a gap at the bottom of the last climb on a rider like Vauquelin, we knew it was going to be difficult to come back.” “We caught the two who were dropped, but Kevin was too strong,” added Quentin, followed by Tejada and Rodriguez in the chase. The leading man always kept a lead of around forty seconds and was therefore able to claim victory in Bologna. Behind Abrahamsen, second in the stage after having anticipated the sprint, Quentin Pacher still beat the rest of the chasers for third place. “The physical condition is there, we now have to do something with it,” he added. “You have to make choices during the race. Sometimes you make the right ones, sometimes not. I made the right choices at the beginning, then I didn’t make the right one for a split second and that ruined my chances”. “Physically, I think he was capable of doing even better,” concluded Frédéric. “Third in a stage of the Tour is a good result, but we may not often have such opportunities, so we are obviously a bit disappointed when we miss out on winning.”
Behind Quentin Pacher, author of his best career result on the Tour, Romain Grégoire also showed some great things among the favorites and took sixteenth place. As for Valentin Madouas, he will wear the best climber’s jersey by proxy on Monday, in the longest stage of the Tour (230 kilometers), made for sprinters.
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