On the final Tour de France GC day Felix Gall continued to perform well, with an impressive performance on the final climb, Col du Platzerwasel, while Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard sat in his slipstream.
The final mountain stage in the 2023 Tour was not straightforward at all. Many riders wanted to get into the breakaway for the last chance to win a mountain stage. But it was not a day for attackers like Thibaut Pinot who is retiring after this season, despite an incredibly strong performance from the Groupama-FDJ legend. There are no gifts in the peloton, particularly not in the Tour de France, and UAE-Emirates were controlling everything for a Tadej Pogačar victory. The last 7 kilometres of false flat suited the Slovenian as a reduced bunch sprint was very likely to happen after two difficult 20-25 minute climbs.
Col du Platzerwasel was the decisive final climb. Despite losing loads of time on Col de la Loze in Stage 17, Pogačar recovered well, in a similar fashion to his recovery after the breakdown on Col du Granon in 2022. Pogačar attacked but Vingegaard could easily follow him and was riding passively today, despite having a 7 minute lead over Pogačar in the GC. Vingegaard did not try to attack or make moves which made both riders completely stop before Felix Gall caught them and continued to ride his tempo.
Pogačar and Vingegaard enjoyed the draft behind the Austrian on Col du Platzerwasel. Gall did the climb in 19:20 minutes, pushing 6.83 ᵉW/Kg. Adam and Simon Yates lost only 12 seconds on the climb and caught the leading trio on the way to the finish.
It was Gall's career performance on the 20th stage of a very hard Grand Tour. The Austrian lost a lot of time in the early stages in the Basque Country but performed well after that, winning the Col de la Loze Queen stage and climbing up to 8th position in his Tour debut. Gall has performed consistently throughout the 2023 season, finish Top 10 in Tour de Suisse, Basque Country and Tour of the Alps but he stepped up his level during the Tour.
As expected Pogačar won the bunch sprint against Gall, Vingegaard and the Yates brothers. Vingegaard attempted to get the jump on Pogačar in the sprint but has the much larger consolation of the second Tour de France title in the bag.
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Due to crashes several riders lost their position in the GC. Carlos Rodriguez lost 4th position to Simon Yates, while Sepp Kuss finished 20 minutes behind the winner with a bloodied face and dropped from 9th to 12th place.
De dónde salió Gall?