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The final climb of the Col de la Loze did not disappoint, with action along the 28-kilometre length of the high-altitude ascent from the breakaway and in the general classification battle.
Felix Gall (AG2R-Citroen) conquered the climb and then negotiated the tricky final kilometres to take the biggest win of his career.
"I knew the stage was super hard, and I knew that if we went at a high pace all day I was in a good place to go for victory," said Gall. "Ben [O’Connor] did a great job on the last climb.
"I felt so good at the bottom and I just waited for the steep part. Towards the top, I didn’t feel great anymore, but I wanted to give it a try.
"I can’t say is a childhood dream. But one and a half years ago I couldn’t imagine I’d be in this position now.”
A very strong breakaway contained five Australians, and three of those were key players in the stage, with Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroen) and Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla) putting their own ambitions and putting themselves at the disposal of their team leaders who were aiming to push their way up the overall standings.
Haig took up the pace-making early to push the break’s advantage out, and then tackled the early slopes of the Col de la Loze on the front of the breakaway. When he pulled off midway up the climb, he was replaced by O’Connor, pulling all sort of pain faces as set a fierce tempo for eventual stage winner Felix Gall.
When he had suffered too much, he dropped away and Harper came to the front and set a pace that only Gall, Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) and Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates) could follow. After a kilometre or two of that, Gall took the opportunity to attack, immediately putting a big gap into the group.
Harper paced behind for Yates, and when the former Vuelta a Espana winner jumped off in pursuit of Gall, he was only able to shorten the advantage of Gall by the finish. The up-and-coming Swiss climber struggled his way up the final steep slopes to the finish in Courchevel, taking victory and vaulting his way up the general classification and the mountains standings.
Behind the stage winner, there was plenty of drama in the yellow jersey group with Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) dropping away with still eight kilometres to the top of the climb, well before the majority of contenders had begun to struggle.
Jonas Vingegaard and his team, Jumbo-Visma, used that as the chance to put the battle for the yellow jersey to rest, with Tiesj Benoot then Wilco Kelderman dropping back from the breakaway to aide their team leader. Vingegaard powered away from the rest with still four kilometres until the top of the climb. He continued to surge, only stopped momentarily by a broken down motorcycle that created a traffic jam and nearly blocked the road.
He continued on his way, catching most of the breakaway to finish fourth on the day, with the dishevelled figure of main rival Tadej Pogacar coming in 5’45 later, blowing out Vingegaard’s general classification lead to 7’35.
In the manic shuffle following the stage, with significant general classification riders in the breakaway, Australia’s best-placed rider Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) had lost another two positions on the standings, dropping to seventh overall as he continues to battle the effects of a stage 14 crash.
