Pello Bilbao breaks the drought

At last! 1,816 days had passed, a total of 100 stagesa round number, since a Spanish cyclist had last raised his arms in the Tour de France. There were not 101. That July 21, 2018, Omar Fraile had won in Mende. This July 11, 2023, Pello Bilbao prevailed in Issoirealso in the Massif Central, not far from then, a hundred kilometers away. From Vizcaya to Vizcaya, from Santurce to Guernica. The 33-year-old cyclist from Bahrain thus breaks a long drought, an endless desert with no end in sight. Bilbao is a runner with many tables, who had already touched victory in Bagnères de Bigorre in 2019, the same year that he hunted two stages in the Giro d’Italia. He also has a top-10 overall on the Tour: ninth in 2021. His profile was ideal to irrigate the drying up of the Spanish platoon… And she watered it with tears of emotion. Because of the importance of victory, so persecuted, and because of the memory of a colleague: Gino Mader. It’s for you, Gino.

Bilbao had searched for the escape of the day from the first sets, it had marked this day with a red marker in the road book. He was a day for adventurers, stage hunters… Pello, forged in a thousand battles, knew that if he entered the leading group he would have his chance. A total of 14 runners traveled there, among them another Spaniard, Antonio Pedrero, who also fought for the victory: he finished sixth. With 29 kilometers to go, Krists Neilands left alone. At times he looked like the winner, but the gallop was long. behind rolled a coordinated quintet, with Bilbao and Pedrero, who rushed their options. Neilands succumbed two and a half kilometers away. At that moment, Pello looked like a winner. He was the fastest of all. To do this, the starts had to be stopped. He went after Ben O’Connor first. Then after Georg Zimmerman. The Basque controlled without burning. His speed tip did the rest. By the way, Pello Bilbao has jumped to fifth place overall, 12 seconds behind another Spaniard, Carlos Rodríguez. Ineos had to work hard to save the position of their young leader. And it was not the only moment in which he had to put on his fatigues.

This 10th stage concentrated five ports, four from the third category and one from the second category, it was a mountainous profile over 167 kilometers that invited a distant getaway, an ideal day for hunters, as it finally happened, but it also presented a favorable terrain for ambushes if someone dared to get entangled. . The day after the rest day, in addition, can cause strange fainting, blocked legs. You have to be awake. perhaps to honor the exit in Vulcania, the peloton erupted in the first kilometres, but the puffs of fire came not only from the usual adventurers, but also from the great leaders. The unruly UAE Tour put Tadej Pogacar into a cut, accompanied by Rafal Majka and Adam Yatesthe perfect colleagues to roll up the one from San Quintín, but Jonas Vingegaard was attentive to the play and also got into the group with his inseparable Sepp Kuss. There was no surprise factor between the two roosters, but they still stayed off the hook the third and fourth classified, Jai Hindley and Carlos Rodríguez, which caused an initial heat of the Ineos to recompose the situation and neutralize a disadvantage that reached 40 seconds. They didn’t put much effort into it either, really. With Vingegaard and Pogacar in the lead, the break was going nowhere, so they dropped.

The attempt seemed to go nowhere, but there are precedents that explain this daring. In the 2016 Tour of Spainin one of those stages from which not much was expected until its end in Formigal, just one day after the ascent of the Aubisque, Alberto Contador started from the starthe took with him Nairo Quintana, who was wearing the red jersey at the time, and caught caught Chris Froome off guard and all his Sky team. The oversight cost the Briton a loss of 3:37 minutes at the finish line, which put an end to his overall aspirations and catapulted the Colombian leader to success in Madrid. the wow factor he had exposed the most powerful squad in the platoon. This reminder serves to explain, in part, those singular movements that were experienced this Tuesday at the start of the stage, which in the end did not have any significance in the classification, but at times put the Tour upside down. The breakaway, despite this, took time to take shape, because the stage had started at a thousand, the volcano was still erupting, and the first two hours were covered at more than 41 km/h. Pello Bilbao was always there, with confidence in his possibilities, with his clear commitment. “I have not saved anything,” he repeated at the finish line. This time he didn’t run away. One hundred stages without a Spanish winner are many stages. Too many. The 101 flew to the Basque Country.

General ranking

after cyclist	Equipment	Time
1 Peio Bilbao	TBV	3h:52:34
2 George Zimmerman	ICW	+00:00
3 Ben O’Connor	ACT	+00:00
4 Krists Neilands	IPT	+00:00
5 Johan Esteban Chaves	EFE	+00:00
6 antonio pedrero	MOV	+00:03
7 Mattias Skjelmose	TFS	+00:27
8 Michal Kwiatkowski	IGD	+00:27
9 Warren Barguil	ARK	+00:30
10 Julian Alaphilippe	SOQ	+00:32

after cyclist	Equipment	Time
1 Jonas Vingegaard	TJV	42:33:13
2 Tadej Pogacar	UAD	+00:17
3 Jai Hindley	BOH	+02:40
4 carlos rodriguez	IGD	+04:22
5 Peio Bilbao	TBV	+04:34
6 adam yates	UAD	+04:39
7 Simon Yates	JAY	+04:44
8 thomas pidcock	IGD	+05:26
9 David Gaudú	GFC	+06:01
10 Sepp Kuss	TJV	+06:45