Hugo Houle played it safe on the 17th stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday.
In a breakaway for the fourth consecutive road stage, the cyclist from Israel-Premier Tech (IPT) did not insist in a group of around forty riders who included several climbers well placed in the general, such as Simon Yates (Jayco, 2nd in the stage), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain, 3rd) or Jai Hindley (Bora, 12th).
Anyway, the forcing operated by Jonas Vingegaard’s Jumbo, who never left the fugitives more than three minutes, stifled any offensive desire in this stage with 5145 m of positive elevation.
“Plus, with the big start, it’s the new Jumbo-Visma classic,” noted Houle. They want to ride all the passes as quickly as possible to weaken [Tadej] Pogačar. The wonderful problem for us is that we have to follow them… And since it’s been working well for two years in a row, in my opinion, they will do the same next year…”
“Without sights” for the day’s stage, Houle joined the breakaway to give himself a bit of a lead in the Col de la Loze, which he had discovered with the rest of the peloton in 2020 (victory for his teammate Miguel Angel Lopez). Two IPTs accompanied him on Wednesday: the Latvian Krists Neilands, picked up a little before him, and the Australian Nick Schultz, 23rd at the finish after a rather discreet Tour.
Dropped towards the end of the previous climb, Houle returned to the lead after a descent at full speed. “I’m a little lazy sometimes: I’d rather get a little off the hook and catch them on the descent, than fight a little harder [to rock with the group]!” My plan worked. »
The 32-year-old Quebecer adopted his own pace from the foot of Loze, in which he had “mass juice”. Forty-third at the top, 25 min 16 s behind the winner Felix Gall (AG2R), he is now 48th overall (2 h 41 min 34 s).
“A little less on the legs than last year”, due to his cold last week, Houle still feels in the game. Stages 19 and 20, Friday and Saturday, could represent opportunities.
