July 18, 2021

Latvian Skujiņš Wins 2021 Tour de France Point d’Appui

Toms Skujiņš of Trek-Segafredo won the Point d’Appui on the ride into Paris during the final stage of the 2021 Tour de France. The race had been without a fulcrum for four stages, but the abandonment of the race by Jakob Fuglsang of Astana-Premier Tech before the start of Stage 21 left 141 riders to come home in Paris.

The grey jersey changed hands 13 times during the race, with two riders — Omar Fraile Matarranz and Rui Costa — holding the Point d’Appui after two separate stages each.

Skujiņš, 30, has raced in the Tour de France since 2018, holding the polka dot jersey for five stages during the 2018 edition and being awarded the combativity award on Stage 5 of both the 2018 and 2019 editions. He finished in 81 or 82 in previous tours and finished at 71st place this year. Skujiņš held the Point d’Appui briefly during the 2019 Tour de France when he landed at the middle of the peloton at the end of Stage 19.

Trek-Segafredo’s support of GC leader Vicenzo Nibali lasted until the second rest day, at which point Nibali abandoned to begin preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. Skujiņš made the best of the tour by jumping into several breaks on the latter stages.

The winner of the three-week race was the Slovenian incumbent, Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates, who had a comfortable lead over other competitors since midway through the race, having won four stages of his own. As in the 2020 Tour de France, Pogacar also won the white jersey for best young rider and the polka dot jersey for best mountain climber of the tour.

The Lantern Rouge went to Tim Declercq of Deceuninck-QuickStep, who finished nearly 5 hours behind the leader, Pogacar. The team title went to Bahrain Victorious, which incurred a hotel raid by French police after Stage 17 looking for evidence of doping.

Highlights of the tour include:

The across-the-board range of Wout van Aert, the Belgian rider for Jumbo-Visma who won a flat stage, a mountain stage, the Stage 20 time trial and then the sprint finish on the next day’s final stage on the Champs-Élysees of Paris.
The return of Mark Cavendish of Deceunink-QuickStep to the sprints winning the green jersey and five stages, bringing his career total to 34 and tying the career record stage wins of Eddy Merckz. Despite
The top-25 finish of the oldest rider in the peloton this year Alejandro Valverde of Movistar Team, who won his first stage of the Tour de France in 2005 during his first appearance in the tour.
A strong showing and win on Stage 15 from the top American in the race, Sepp Kuss of Jumbo-Visma, during his first time in the tour.

The Point d’Appui through the stages:

Stage 1 — Jelle Wallays of Cofidis
Stage 2 — No fulcrum
Stage 3 — Michael Woods of Start-up Nation
Stage 4 — Omar Fraile Matarranz of Astana-Premier Tech
Stage 5 — Rui Costa of UAE Team Emirates
Stage 6 — Omar Fraile Matarranz of Astana-Premier Tech
Stage 7 — Michael Schär of AG2R Citroën Team
Stage 8 — Warren Barguil of Team Arkea-Samsic
Stage 9 — Thomas De Gendt of Lotto Soudal
Stage 10 — No fulcrum
Stage 11 — No fulcrum
Stage 12 — Connor Swift of Team Arkea-Samsic
Stage 13 — Benoit Cosnefroy of AG2R Citroën Team
Stage 14 — Tao Geoghegan Hart of Ineos Grenadiers
Stage 15 — Lorenzo Rota of Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux
Stage 16 — Rui Costa of UAE Team Emirates
Stage 17 — No fulcrum
Stage 18 — No fulcrum
Stage 19 — No fulcrum
Stage 20 — No fulcrum
Stage 21 — Toms Skujiņš of Trek-Segafredo

July 2, 2021

Schär Is New Point d’Appui After Stage 7

Michael Schär of AG2R Citroën Team found his way to the Point d’Appui of Stage 7 of the 2021 Tour de France as Omar Fraile Mantannza fell four places.

Schär, one of the top Swiss riders for the past decade, is competing in his 11th Tour de France. He nearly always finishes in the top half of the peloton, winning stages in two previous tours. He has also won the combativity awards on three Tour stages, including Stage 3 this year. He also held the Point d’Appui in the 2020 Tour at the end of Stage 13.

Roger Kluge of Lotto Soudal finished 25 minutes behind all riders on the Stage 7 and wound up with the Lanterne Rouge, probably lucky to escape being cut on time.

Matej Mohoric of Bahrain Victorious won the stage, riding away from a large break-away group that included a goodly number of GC contenders, including Mathieu Van der Poel, who retained the yellow jersey.

September 20, 2020

2020 Tour Finishes Without a Fulcrum

After the fireworks of Stage 20 in the 2020 Tour de France, it will come as no surprise that the middle of the peloton was shaken a bit, too, on the final day, although no Point d’Appui could be awarded since an even number of riders came home on the Champs-Élysées.

Finishing on les Cuspides of the Point d’Appui were Michael Valgren of NTT Pro Cycling finishing 73rd and Imanol Erviti of Movistar Team finishing 74th. Neither of them had been on the cusps after Stage 20. Valgren, who finished last on the final stage, fell back four spots, and Erviti gained rose one placement. Both Valgren and Erviti have found themselves on the cusp at the end of various stages of previous tours, but this is their first time to arrive in Paris at the middle of the peloton.

Stage 20 turned the rest of the tour upside down when Tadej Pogačar destroyed the field on the time trial climb to La Planche des Belles Filles, moving ahead of fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič by nearly a minute to take the yellow jersey for the first time in the race. Pogačar also picked up the polka dot jersey as best mountain climber and the white jersey for the best young rider. Pogačar is the youngest rider to win the Tour de France since 1904 and the youngest rider ever to win the polka dot jersey.

Sam Bennett of Deceuninck-Quickstep won the green jersey for best sprinter, punctuating the win by also winning the bunch spring of Stage 21 in Paris. Marc Hirschi of Team Sunweb won the most-combative rider award.

Movistar Team won the team championship with a team time more than 18 minutes quicker than runner-up Team Jumbo-Visma.

Roger Kluge of Lotto Soudal was the Lanterne Rouge. Kluge fell into last place on the mountainous Stage 16 after dropping back to help pace teammate Caleb Ewan through the climbs and keep Ewan in contention for sprint stages.

Only six stages ended with an odd number of riders in the race. The leaders in the Point d’Appui at the end of each stage:

Stage 1 — Krists Neilands of Israel Start-Up Nation
Stage 2 — Dayer Quintana of Team Arkea-Samsic
Stage 3 — No fulcrum
Stage 4 — No fulcrum
Stage 5 — No fulcrum
Stage 6 — No fulcrum
Stage 7 — No fulcrum
Stage 8 — No fulcrum
Stage 9 — No fulcrum
Stage 10 — No fulcrum
Stage 11 — Pierre Latour (Fra) AG2R la Mondiale
Stage 12 — No fulcrum
Stage 13 — Michael Schär of CCC Team
Stage 14 — Nans Peters of AG2R la Mondiale
Stage 15 — No fulcrum
Stage 16 — No fulcrum
Stage 17 — No fulcrum
Stage 18 — Andrey Amador of Ineos Grenadiers
Stage 19 — No fulcrum
Stage 20 — No fulcrum
Stage 21 — No fulcrum

The winner of the 2019 Tour de France Point d’Appui, Élie Gesbert of Arkéa–Samsic, was unable to defend his title in the Tour de France this year. He suffered a fractured kneecap at Challenge Mallorca in February and is still recovering. Winners of the Point D’Appui in other recent major races finished in the following placements:

2018 Tour de France — Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb finished 126th.
2019 Paris-Nice — Tim Declercq of Deceuninck-Quickstep finished 127th.
2020 Milan-San Remo — Felix Grossschartner of Bora-Hansgrohe finished 63rd.
2017 Milan-San Remo — Luke Rowe of Ineos Grenadiers finished 129th.

July 24, 2017

Arndt Wins 2017 Tour Point d’Appui

Bicycle racers in the Tour de France rounding a curve.

Nikias Arndt, winner of the Point d’Appui in the 2017 Tour de France, rides in protection of Warren Barguil, the holder of the polka dot jersey.

After a tour in which the Point d’Appui changed hands 16 times, Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb grabbed the fulcrum on Saturday’s individual time trial and held onto it Sunday, despite some last minute changes in the standings swirling around him.

Arndt was one of the riders leading out the eventual winner of the points classification, Michael Matthews, but also riding in support of Sunweb’s eventual winner of the King of the Mountains, Warren Barguil, who was also named the most-combative rider overall. So Sunweb takes home four of the top seven honors available in the Tour: the green jersey, the polka dot, the red jersey number and the gray jersey of the Point d’Appui.

Arndt won minor tours early in his career, including the Tour of Alanya and the Tour of Berlin, more recently winning the points classification in the Tour of Bulgaria and best young rider of the Arctic Race of Norway. He won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race earlier this year. He has ridden in the Vuelta a Españas three times, finishing as the Lanterne Rouge in the 2016 edition, and twice in the Giro d’Italia, winning stage 21 of the 2016 Giro.

This was Arndt’s first Tour de France. He finished 11th on Stage 1 of the Tour, the individual time trial, with the same time as fellow German Marcel Kittel of the Quick-Step Floors team and Edvald Boasson Hagen of the Dimension Data team. He rose to 10th place on Stage 2 and held that spot until Stage 5, slowly settling back to the middle of the peloton. In the final time trial of the Tour, Stage 20, Arndt finished at 7th place on the stage, showing he still had legs under him. Sunweb, which signed him for the 2017 season, announced the next day that it would extend his contract.

The winner of the Tour, of course, was Christopher Froome of Team Sky, and his teammate Luke Rowe finished as the Lanterne Rouge, 4 hours, 35 minutes and 52 seconds adrift. The median time of the race also went to a Team Sky cyclist, Michal Kwiatkowski, who had a time of 2 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds.

On the stage, Dylan Groenewegen of Team LottoNl-Jumbo won the sprint on the Champs-Élysées, and Daniel Martin of the Quick-Step Floors team, was the fulcrum finisher for the day.

The general classification fulcrum placement by stage:

Stage 1: No fulcrum.
Stage 2: Jay McCarthy of Bora-Hansgrohe.
Stage 3: Janez Brajkovič of Bahrain-Merida.
Stage 4: No fulcrum.
Stage 5: Vegard Stake Laengen of UAE Team Emirates.
Stage 6: Yoann Offredo of the Wanty-Groupe Gobert team.
Stage 7: Yukiya Arashiro of the Bahrain-Merida team.
Stage 8: Mike Teunissen of Team Sunweb.
Stage 9: Nils Politt of the Katusha-Alpecin team.
Stage 10: No fulcrum.
Stage 11: Michael Albasini of the Orica-Scott team.
Stage 12: Paul Martens of Team LottoNl-Jumbo.
Stage 13: Michael Schär of BMC Racing Team.
Stage 14: No fulcrum.
Stage 15: Andrey Amador of Movistar Team.
Stage 16: Jay McCarthy of the Bora-Hansgrohe team.
Stage 17: Danilo Wyss of BMC Racing Team.
Stage 18: Andrey Amador of Movistar Team.
Stage 19: Danilo Wyss of BMC Racing Team. Wyss finished on the cusps of the 2013 Vuelta.
Stage 20: Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb.
Stage 21: Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb.

July 15, 2017

Schär Takes Fulcum During Bastille Day Stage

Michael Schär of BMC, © Matthieu Riegler, CC-BY This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Another mountain stage, and Michael Schär of BMC Racing Team is the newest Point d’Appui as the standings fell like jackstraws during Stage 13 of the 2017 Tour de France.

Schär won a string of time trials at the Swiss National Junior Road Championships in the mid-2000s, turning pro in 2007 and signing with Astana. He joined BMC in 2010. He has ridden once in the Vuelta a España and once in the Giro d’Italia. This is his seventh Tour de France and he has finished as high as 43rd in 2014.

Frenchman Warren Barguil of Team Sunweb won Stage 13, He and Nairo Quintana of Movistar Team crossed from the group of leaders to join Alberto Contador of the Trek-Segafredo team and Mikel Landa of Team Sky on final climb. Barguil grabbed the mountain points and then sat on for the rest of the ride into Foix before sprinting out of the four-person group. The other three didn’t mind too much, all gaining back time on Aru and Froome.

Andrew Talansky of the Cannondale-Drapac team was the fulcrum rider on the stage.

Fabio Aru of Astana Pro Team remains the leader of the Tour de France for a second day as pulled back each challenge during the climbs and final descent. Luke Rowe of Team Sky remains the Lanterne Rouge.