2023 Season, Grand Tours, Tour de France

Tour Moments of Joy: Stage 12 – Head Versus Heart

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I hope Cofidis have another bottle of bubbly ready to pop for Ion Izaguirre tonight. Holy moly what a panachetastic victory on a bat-shit crazy stage 12 of the Tour de France. On any other day a second victory in as many weeks for the Mighty ‘Dis would be my moment of joy, my head tells me so. Except, you see, there was also a rather magnificent Thibaut Pinot attack (Groupama-FDJ) – and the heart wants what it wants.

It’s fair to say we have not seen a lot of attackityness from Monsieur Pinot in his last Tour de France. However, yesterday he told reporters his legs were tingling and word on the street gave his fans some hope – even team leader David Gaudu gave his blessings #freetibo

The stage was madness, attacks a-go-go. At one point there were more riders in the break and off-the-back than there were in the peloton. No one knew what the heck was going on, or where anyone was at given moment – not even the wonderful Jensie on his Moto.

And then, just as it looked like a group up the road was on the verge of snapping the elastic, THIS HAPPENED – my moment of JOY

Thibaut shot away from the GC group and stormed the 12sec gap to the lead group like it was nothing. Pure Pinot and my heart sang.

He chased down a solo attack by Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) with Movistar’s Matteo Jorgenson but could not go with the winning move by Ion Izaguirre.

He finished sixth on the day and moved up to tenth overall on GC, but a top ten overall is not what will motivate him.

I did have to laugh a little at the thought he made INEOS Grenadiers pull.

I live in hope and expectation for one more magnificently stomping escapade from this man. #ALLEZTIBO

Stage results

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