Jasper grabs his 9th top-10 finish, Trek-Segafredo clinches second in teams, and Richie Porte takes 11th overall.
Another Tour de France is in the books.
The 106th edition delivered one of the closest and thrilling general classification battles in some years, and in the end, presented a worthy winner in Egan Bernal of Team Ineos – the first Colombian to win the Tour – while Trek-Segafredo’s Richie Porte finished in 11th place, short of expectations, but not short of effort.
“With Richie, we wanted to be top 5,” said team director Steven de Jongh. “That was the expectation, but we also must not forget that Richie finished his last Grand Tour in 2016, and after that, he always crashed out. Coming back and finishing in 11th was not what we expected he’d do, and he’s also disappointed in that, but in the end, at least he finished the Tour again. Now he knows again what it is and what he needs to do to be up there and I think that will help him in future Grand Tours.”
It’s no secret. I didn’t come here to finish 11th on GC. I fought with everything I had, we didn’t have great luck, but we had a great team, a great atmosphere, which is good. It’s been three years since I made it to Paris, so it’s a bit of a miracle to make it here! I am a bit disappointed to be honest, but it is what it is, and we'll be back next year!
- Richie Porte
The good was the time trial, the bad probably the Tourmalet and stage 20 – I had a terrible day and exploded. But otherwise, I think there was probably more good than bad.
- Richie Porte
While the GC never panned out as hoped, and a win eluded the team, Trek-Segafredo wore the yellow numbers and yellow helmets signifying the best team for seven stages, and in the end, finished second overall of the 22 teams. It was a full team effort that did not go unrecognized.
“Second in team GC says something about the team; we were quite physical, well represented in the breakaways, and that was a really good thing about this team this year,” pointed out de Jongh. “We can say that Ciccone in yellow for two days, the white jersey, and second in the team GC was the good. The bad was that we didn’t win a stage – we were close with Giulio’s second – and the ugly was the crash where we had 5 riders involved and 4 frames broken, that was hard for riders, staff, everybody.”
Mr. Consistency
It’s never easy to win a stage in the Tour, and Jasper Stuyven came close on a few occasions – a 3rd place in stage three his highest finish – and ended with a total of nine top-10 finishes. While the Belgian had a very good Tour by most standards, by his own, he came to win.
“Maybe tomorrow or next week I will be happy with the top tens I achieved, but to be honest I came to get a stage win,” said Stuyven. “In Épernay, the 3rd stage, Julian (Alaphilippe) was just too strong and he rode away from everyone. Then in the stage when I was in the break when (Daryl) Impey won the stage, I think those two were the biggest chances for me. These are also the two that I highlighted before the Tour, so it’s nice to get a small result there, but I was aiming for a little bit better.”
This Tour, it looks like 8th spot is my spot. I think I had the power today to do a better result, but positioning is also part of the sprints and I lost the good spot in the last K.
- Jasper Stuyven
A.S.O./Thomas MAHEUX
The final word
Trek-Segafredo’s leading director during the Tour, Kim Andersen, was recognized for his 20th Tour de France. Andersen was also acknowledged during a ‘100-year of Yellow’ celebration – in 1984 he was the first Dane to wear the yellow jersey – and he joined numerous other champions and legends in honor of the coveted shirt.
It is thus fitting we leave the last word with him:
“We had very high expectations and we did not reach them. But in other ways, we had good things: the second place with Ciccone and the yellow jersey, which was not expected, and I think that we can compare that somewhat to a stage win.
“The last mountain day with Richie was very unexpected and there was no way that we could see this coming. The day before he was top, and after that he was motivated, and everybody was motivated. For me personally, this was even more disappointing than the day we lost time in the wind.
“In general, it was a nice Tour. The boys worked well all race, and when you see that we are still second in the team GC that means that they were always up there. I think we had five times where we were in playing for a stage win. Okay, we didn’t win, but it’s not easy to get five chances to win a stage in the Tour. We were there, we just missed this little bit. But it has been a nice Tour.”
