The second week of the Tour de France didn’t quite start at full throttle. Towards Saint-Amand-Montrond on Tuesday, the peloton resumed racing in a relatively peaceful way during stage 10, which concluded with the expected sprint after an uneventful day. Jasper Philipsen claimed victory, while Groupama-FDJ kept their focus on stage 11 towards on Wednesday.
In the aftermath of the first rest day, the riders’ menu was fairly light this Tuesday. From Orléans to Saint-Amand-Montrond, 187 kilometers were to be covered, and absolutely no difficulties featured on the route. The sprinters were therefore expected for another battle, and there was actually no battle at the start for the breakaway. Some sort of procession therefore took place during the first hour of racing, before small accelerations appeared. Behind a trio who took the lead without much conviction, Kevin Geniets and Valentin Madouas also wanted to test the waters. “We knew it was going to be a bunch sprint at the end,” claimed Benoît Vaugrenard. “The goal was just to follow but above all to analyse. If there were more than eight guys, we could have tried, but with just five of them, it didn’t make any sense. The stage was not hard enough and the weather too mild to hope for anything.”
“We are expecting a very hard day”, Benoît Vaugrenard
After a handful of minutes in the lead, the Groupama-FDJ’s duo returned to the peloton, which then covered the rest of the stage at a rather moderate pace. A few peaks of tension did occur on the area’s exposed plains, but serious things began only in the last ten kilometres. The sprinters were able to compete fairly in Saint-Amand-Montrond, where Jasper Philipsen took the victory. Clément Russo slipped into the top-20 (19th) while the rest of the team finished safely. “Tomorrow, there is a nice stage, and the breakaway might make it to the end, so we wanted to keep as much energy as possible,” said Benoît. “It won’t be the same scenario at all. There will be a big fight at the start to take the breakaway and we are expecting a very hard day overall.” The finish will be located in Le Lioran after a very hilly end of the stage.
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