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MORZINE, France — On a day of big disappointments for many at the Tour de France, EF Education-EasyPost was hit harder than most.
The U.S.-registered team saw their squad cut down to five riders on stage 14 after losing Esteban Chaves and James Shaw to two separate crashes. The team already lost GC hopeful Richard Carapaz on the first stage to a crash.
Adding insult to injury, Neilson Powless lost the lead in the mountains classification with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) drawing level on points with him. Vingegaard is officially the leader, though Powless will continue to wear the polka-dot jersey for now as the Dane is in yellow.
This year’s Tour de France has been far less attritional than many previous editions, but stage 14 saw a raft of departures. Thanks to the abandons of Chaves and Shaw, EF Education-EasyPost is now equal with Astana-Qazaqstan in having the fewest remaining riders of any other team in the pack.
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While the team looked downbeat as they arrived back on the bus into Morzine, lead sport director Juan Manuel Gárate struck a resilient tone, one that he hoped to pass onto his riders overnight.
“We have to, they were riding so good today and yesterday,” Gárate told Velo when asked how the team will bounce back. “They were always looking for opportunities and we are going to do the same. It doesn’t matter if we have just one rider on the bus, we will continue to do the same.
“It’s our style and our mentality and this is the message that we’re going to receive tonight. We are going to do our best. We have been in other situations like this in other races and by believing everything can be possible. That’s the direction we’re going to follow.”
There’s no other way to say it. Today was a rough day at the Tour de France. As Esteban put it, “This race is the dream. And today the dream hurts.” ⁰⁰James Shaw suffered a concussion as a result of a crash. CT scans and X-rays showed no signs of further injuries to the rider… pic.twitter.com/abz9dM2e7P
— EF Pro Cycling (@EFprocycling) July 15, 2023
The team confirmed overnight that Chaves had suffered an injury to his sternoclavicular joint after coming down in a major crash early on in the stage that forced the race to be neutralized for around 30 minutes. Several riders said afterward that the road in the area had become slippery, potentially as a result of some unexpected rainfall shortly before the start of the stage.
Shaw’s crash happened shortly after the race resumed when he and Romain Bardet (DSM-Fermenich) came down on a corner and hit a small wall on the side of the road. Both men immediately abandoned and were later diagnosed with a concussion.
“It was a really chaotic day. There was that huge crash at the start of the race and we had Esteban [in it]. It was high speed at that moment and there were a few riders that went directly out of the race,” Gárate said. “He felt ok and after the crash he wanted to continue but a few kilometers later he couldn’t continue because he had pain in his neck, so basically, he said he couldn’t do anything on the bike.
“Then, a few kilometers later, when there was this big crash with Bardet and James Shaw. We couldn’t even see him because he was on the other side of the wall. That was a hard one as well.”
Despite losing the lead in the mountains classification, the team is hopeful that Powless will be able to regain it and continue to wear the polka-dot jersey on merit rather than by default. The biggest battle is likely not to be with those that are seeking to win the classification but the overall contenders that are going to take points by virtue of being at the front of the race when the biggest points are on offer.
“We saw the tactics of the other teams today. It’s not that they were fighting for that jersey, I’m talking about Jumbo and UAE, but at the same time they are fighting for the Tour de France and they’re doing that on the climbs and when you have the bonus seconds on the final climb and they want the bonus seconds on the top then they fight really hard,” Gárate said. “Then nobody has the chance to get the points there. Let’s see. To gain that jersey we need to keep going in breaks and keep on fighting and keep on believing that we can still do it.”
Breakaways have been pretty successful at the Tour de France so far but Jumbo-Visma wouldn’t even let one get any traction during Saturday’s big foray into the mountains as it sought to pile the pressure onto Tadej Pogačar.
With the gap between Vingegaard and Pogačar in first and second only 10 seconds, the bonuses on the last climbs and the finish line have become quite important for the two riders of late. That could make life difficult for breakaways to succeed, though Gárate believes that it could also have the opposite impact as Jumbo-Visma looks to try and prevent Pogačar from having opportunities to get bonuses.
“Or the other way around, because today Jumbo did the right strategy to put Pogačar in trouble and then they arrived together and then anything can happen between then. Let’s see, because maybe tomorrow they aren’t going to repeat the same thing as today,” Gárate said. “I will think about that tomorrow. It’s so equal, the situation between both that it could happen that they wait and just play the cards in the final climb and if that’s the situation then maybe the break has chances.”
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EF Education to keep fighting 'even if we have just one rider' left says DS after difficult Tour de France day - Outside Magazine
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