Racing
TdF Daily | Stage 18 | Another day, another break!
Sean Quinn, Ben Healy, and Richard Carapaz go back on the attack
July 18, 2024
Sean Quinn, Ben Healy, and Richard Carapaz went back on the attack on stage 18 of the Tour de France.
A day after celebrating Richie’s historic stage win in Superdévoluy, the three EF Education-EasyPost teammates took off up the road, hunting for more opportunities.
After a very fast and aggressive start on the road out of Gap, they broke clear over the top of the Col du Festre in a 36-man group. Ahead of them lay four more categorized climbs as well as the long drag up to the finish in Barcelonette. None of the summits were over 1500 meters–the high Alps come tomorrow–but with over 3000 meters of climbing on the 179.5-km course and hot sun burning overhead, it was going to be a taxing day, tactically as well as physically.
Our guys saved their matches until the Côte de Saint-Apollinaire, the second-to-last climb with a summit at the 121-km mark. Ben went first, attacking as soon as the road pitched up. Sean countered as soon as he was brought back. Richie was waiting in the wings.
Unfortunately the game didn’t go our way today. A strong group rolled away over the summit. With some of the strongest sprinters in the race on their wheels, it wasn’t up to our guys to chase.
Tomorrow we go again. Stage 19 will be a fearsome race through the Alps, crossing the Col de Vars and Cime de la Bonette, which at 2802-meters is the highest point in this year's Tour, before the finish at the summit of Isola 2000.
This Tour is going to go out with a bang and we’re ready to light off some fireworks.
Richard Carapaz
Today was good. I’m very happy with how I’m performing, because this last week has been beautiful, and I think that the important thing is that: the sensations I’m having on the bike. There are two important days coming now. Let’s try and get it!
Tom Southam, sports director
The break ended up going in a pretty hard place on quite a long climb, so it was a mixed bag of climbers and strong riders. The dynamic always gets quite difficult when the group is that big, especially when there is no big climb at the end. Just before the downhill there was a big split. It could have happened anywhere once we came off the last climb. It just didn't work out for us today, which is a shame. Once the first three went, we were relying on the teams of Van Aert and Aaronburu to drive for the sprint from behind, but that didn't really happen, because there was the chasing group in between. That’s that.