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TdF daily: all in for tomorrow's break

Stage 19 will be a great chance for us

July 20, 2023

Stage 18 of the Tour de France was a fast run from Moûtiers in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, northwest through Savoie and across the rolling hills of Ain to Bourg-en-Bresse.

We bet that it would end in a sprint, but after yesterday’s travails in the Alps, a break managed to outwit and out-power the peloton and beat the charging peloton to the line.

We’re aiming to match them on tomorrow’s stage. Anything can still happen in this Tour de France and tomorrow is a great chance. The 172.8-km stage from Moirans-en-Montagne to Poligny runs through the foothills of the Jura mountains along the French-Swiss border in the region of Franche-Comtè. Although there are only two categorised climbs, the fourth-cat Côte du Bois de Lionge near the start and third-cat Côte d’Ivory with 25 kilometers to go, the course will take its toll as it rolls up and down all day.

Read our team’s thoughts from after today’s stage.

Magnus Cort

Tomorrow will be a hard stage. Especially after today, where we saw the break make it, I expect there will be a lot of riders and teams that will want to be up there to try and make it from a breakaway before a bunch sprint and I want to be in it.

DS Juanma Garate

On paper, today was not a stage for the breakaway, but obviously it was the 18th stage of the Tour de France and the sprinters’ teams were tired as well. We want to invest everything in tomorrow. That’s why we were not there today. Tomorrow is the best opportunity for us. I hope it is going to be our day.

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Tour de France

Jul. 01, 2023 – Jul. 23, 2023

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Alberto Bettiol

Alberto Bettiol has always been a winner. He started racing around the hills of Tuscany when he was five and won his second-ever race in his hometown of Castelfiorentino. He has been bringing home bouquets of flowers ever since.

His coaches and supporters always believed in his talent. Alberto was a strong junior and U23 rider, who signed his first professional contract with our team in 2014. But Alberto wanted to become a champion. He had grown up watching the classics and the Giro d’Italia with his father, a former footballer, and dreamed of winning the sport’s greatest races.

In 2019, he won his first Monument. Alberto’s victory in the Tour of Flanders that year changed his life. It gave him the confidence that he could beat the best riders in the world. He backed it up with an impressive string of results, including a stunning solo stage victory at the 2021 Giro d’Italia.

In 2022, Alberto earned podium places on stages of the Tour de France, Tour de Suisse, and Deutschland Tour.

He now splits his time between Lugano, Switzerland and Castelfiorentino. He enjoys all of the opportunities to travel that cycling now provides him, but is always happy to return to the Tuscan hills where he got started.

Alberto started 2023 with a prologue win at the Tour Down Under, but had a tough spring set back by injury and illness and had to miss his favorite classics. He made his return with a strong ride at the Giro d’Italia. He has great ambitions for the Tour de France.