Greig Leach

Contemporary figurative art created with oilsticks on paper, watercolors, stained glass and mixed media color based images of people, food, cycling and faith-based iconography
 
 

Down the Back TdF26-24

The story of today is the very large breakaway that got off the front of the peloton today. At one point there were 34 men in the escape group representing all by five teams that started the Tour in Barcelona. It was nice to see the tri-colore of the French Champion Romain Gregoire (Groupama FDJ-United). He was hanging around the back of the group with his countryman Kevin Vauquelin (Netcompany-Ineos), the Czech Champion Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), Nelson Oliviera (Movistar), and Michael Matthews (Jayco-Alula). The group has built up just over five-and-a-half minutes on the peloton containing all of the race favorites. It feels like the peloton is taking a big risk, but then the two guys that are currently in the virtual first and second places are not realistic threats to carry the Maillot Jaune all of the way to Paris. Given that UAE Team Emirates chased down yesterday's breakaway (and got a lot of grief online about that) it remains to be seen if they will pull this group back. Conversely, this many members of the break will make it difficult to reel them back in if they don't start chasing soon.