July 18, 2019

At Mid-Point of 2019 Tour, Keukeleire Holds Point d’Appui

Jens Keukeleire of Lotto Soudal. [Harelbeke – E3 Harelbeke, 27 maart 2015 (B051).JPG from Wikimedia Commons by Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick, CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Stage winners of the 2019 Tour de France continued to change daily through the Stage 11, the mid-point of the race, but the stage brought the first repeat winner of the Point d’Appui of the race, Jens Keukeleire of Lotto Soudal.

Keukeleire won a stage in the 2016 Vuelta a España as well as finishing as the stage Point d’Appui during Stage 15. He also won general classification in the Baloise Belgian Tour in 2017 and 2018. This is his third Tour de France.

The crash by Alessandro De Marchi of CCC Team during Stage 9 left the race with its first odd number of racers finishing the day and the first Point d’Appui of the race. De Marchi crashed heavily and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. He suffered a broken collarbone, ribs and a small collapse of his lung.

Riders had abandoned in earlier stages but coincidentally they had gone out in pairs, leaving the race with an even number of survivors each day until Stage 9.

The Point d’Appui through the stages so far:

Stage 1 — No fulcrum
Stage 2 — No fulcrum
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 — Dylan van Baarle of Team Ineos
Stage 10 — Jens Keukeleire of Lotto Soudal
Stage 11 — Jens Keukeleire of Lotto Soudal

The yellow jersey of the race so far is Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-QuickStep, and the Lanterne Rouge is Yoann Offredo of Wanty-Gobert, who has held the red jersey since Stage 6. Offredo held the GC Point d’Appui after Stage 6 of the 2017 Tour de France.

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.

March 7, 2013

Siutsou Holds onto Share of Cuspides on Stage 4

Kanstantsin Siutsou of Sky Procycling held onto a piece of les Cuspides during Stage 4 of the Paris-Nice spring classic, being joined by Dennis Vanendert of Lotto Belisol, who holds the lead Cuspide. Despite more abandons of the race, the final number who came home on Stage 4 was even, and so no fulcrum could be awarded.

Kanstantsin Siutsou has had a decent career, winning the Tour de Georgia in 2008 and finishing 16th in the Tour de France that same year. In 2011, he finished high in the standings for the Criterium du Dauphine and the Giro d’Italia. Since joining Team Sky in 2012, his role has shifted to more domestique work in support of Bradley Wiggins and Michael Rogers. He was part of the team for the 2012 Tour de France, but crashed on Stage 3 and was forced out of the race. Good to see him back.

Speaking of back, there’s a new Lanterne Rouge. Andrea Palini of Lampre-Merida has fallen to the rear of the bus. After Stage 3, he held the median time for general classification. After Stage 4, Mattia Cattaneo of Lampre-Merida, had the median time. Cattaneo, of course, was on the cuspides after Stage 3, so you can see there have been some major shifts in standings between the two stages.

On the stage, the two riders on the cusp of the fulcrum were Yoann Offredo of FDJ and Kristijan Durasek of Lampre-Merida.