Photo gallery: Misty rain and faces of pain on stage 15 of the Tour
Simon Yates made it look easy. He made it seem like winning a stage of the Tour de France is as simple as losing a bunch of time early in the race, getting in a break in the mountains, and then just riding away to victory. His expression as he crossed the line atop Prat d’Albis, arms aloft, was one of “right, job done – what’s next?” rather than that of a man who had to fight for 185km to win his second Tour stage in four days.
Of course there was nothing easy about what Yates did. Losing time, sure — that part is easy. Getting in the breakaway on a tough Pyrenean mountain stage? Not nearly as easy, particularly when the pace is so frenetic early on as riders fight for a spot up the road. And then riding away from a group of other strong climbers that included Nairo Quintana, Romain Bardet and Vincenzo Nibali? Nothing easy about that.
Of course it helps that Simon Yates is a world-class climber with a Grand Tour victory under his belt. It helps that he’s never had GC ambitions at this year’s Tour. And it helps that his GC leader, his brother Adam, doesn’t need the same support he did when the latter was still in GC contention.
But still, Simon Yates made it look easy. And just like his first Tour stage win earlier in the race was overshadowed by Rohan Dennis’ bizarre departure, so Yates’ win on stage 15 was overshadowed by the GC battle happening further down the road. And fair enough: the GC battle was a truly engrossing one.
In the gallery below you’ll find shots of Simon Yates’ impressive solo victory, of the intriguing GC battle behind him, and much more from stage 15 of the 2019 Tour de France.
- Pop quiz: whose arm is this? And what’s the significance of the number 101?
- Simon Yates making his move from the break.
- He bridged up to Simon Geschke (who had also been in the break) and then set off on his own.
- Nibali had been in the break but drifted way back to finish more than half an hour behind Yates.
- Tim Wellens continues to lead the KOM classification on board his “blood-spattered” bike.
- Geraint Thomas (left) and Steven Kruijswijk finished seventh and eighth respectively.
- For the first time, overall leader Julian Alaphilippe showed signs of weakness, dropping a bunch of time to his rivals.
- Mikel Landa made a long-range move and took a good chunk of time out of his GC rivals.
- Pinot’s peak power numbers mightn’t have improved dramatically since his junior days, but his ability to repeat such efforts certainly has.
- Uran struggled on the day, finishing over a minute behind Alaphilippe and more than two minutes behind the likes of Landa and Emmanuel Buchmann.
- Yates won the stage by 33 seconds.
- Simon Yates has two stage wins already, and his Mitchelton-Scott team has three. Could more be on the way?
- How will Thomas go in the heat?
- The Frenchman holds on to yellow to the second rest day. How much longer can he hold it?
- Fabio Aru finished the stage 4:45 behind Yates – not a great day. Can we all agree that white shorts are just bad?
- George Bennett rode strongly in support of team leader Kruijswijk.
- The riders were given arm bands and whistles to descend.
- Hang in there, Dylan. Not long until the Champs-Elysees now …
- Sagan was second-last across the line, 31:34 after Yates. Riders had well and truly started descending by that point.
- Bernal leads the best young rider classification and sits fifth overall.