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Michael Woods becomes the second Canadian to wear the Tour’s polka dot jersey

Rusty won the Tour de Suisse mountains competition last month

Photo by: Sirotti

One month after winning the Tour de Suisse’s mountains classification, Michael Woods snatched the Tour de France polka dot jersey from Nairo Quintana’s shoulders after Saturday’s climbs. Woods is the second ever Canadian to wear the polka dots, after Alex Stieda in 1986. He also jumped up four place on GC to 26th. Bauke Mollema soloed to his second Tour stage victory, much like how he did in 2017, with a long range attack. Tadej Pogačar stayed safe in yellow.

You can watch the 108th Tour de France at FloBikes.

The Course

Saturday offered up five categorized climbs over 183.7 km as the race continued to head southwest. The final climb was the Cat. 2 Col de Saint-Louis, 4.6 km of 6.9 percent with bonus second at its peak, cresting 17 km from the finish line in Quillan.

The first breakaway of the day was a quintet that rolled over the first categorized climb and then was brought back at the day’s intermediate sprint.

There was a huge effort to establish the next breakaway before the foot of Cat. 2 Col de Montségur. But it took the opening slopes of the climb for something to gel. Michael Woods bridged over to Wout Poels and Mattia Cattaneo and then came second at the top of the climb.

Woods on the move on the first Cat. 2 climb of the day.

Woods and Poels, now second and third in the KOM race respectively, descended together ahead of Cattaneo and another chase septet. It was a short distance until Climb 3, Cat. 3 Col de la Croix des Morts. Cattaneo made it back to the front and then lectured Woods about something.

Cattaneo remonstrates with Woods over something.

Woods had the better of his breakmates at the Croix des Morts peak and was tied on 50 points with polka dot jersey Nairo Quintana, but he was the new virtual leader.

Climb 4 was the short but steep Cat. 3 Côte de Galinagues. Two chases made contact before the road tilted up and Woods found himself in a group of 14. Woods attacked into a headwind early and found Poels come around him, but Woods now owned the jersey outright, with Quintana one point and Poels two points behind him.

Woods was second to Poels on Saturday’s fourth climb, but he took over the mountains classification lead.

There were 40 kilometres until the next KOM points. The breakaway was almost 4:00 ahead of the peloton, so it was still uncertain if it would stay away to contest the win.

Unfortunately, Woods, leading the group, crashed on a downhill. It took the Canadian several kilometres to get back to the break. Would he have enough left to skirmish on Cat. 2 Col de Saint-Louis?

Just as Woods returned, Mollema dashed away from the group, the Dutchman determined to take a buffer onto the slopes of the Saint-Louis. He took 1:16 onto the climb, and by this time, the peloton was so far behind it was clear that the day’s victor was among the 14.

Behind Trek-Segafredo’s soloist, the rest of the fugitives started to tussle. Woods made the first chase group, while Poels was distanced. Woods was second over the top of Saint-Louis.

There was no stopping Mollema from collecting the day’s flowers. Woods’ quartet toiled to stay clear of the next group and the Canadian eased over the line in fifth.

Mollema moved up to in the GC, while fellow escapee Guillaume Martin jumped up all the way to second place.

Sunday is a harder, slightly longer version of Saturday’s routes. Expect to see Rusty out there defending his garment.

2021 Tour de France Stage 14
1) Bauke Mollema (The Netherlands/Trek-Segafredo)
2) Patrick Konrad (Austria/Bora-Hansgrohe) +1:04
3) Sergio Higuita (Colombia/EF Education-Nippo) s.t.
5) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +1:10
56) Hugo Houle (Canada/Astana-Premier Tech) +9:52

2021 Tour de France GC
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 56:50:21
2) Guillaume Martin (France/Cofidis) +4:04
3) Rigoberto Uran (Colombia/EF Education-Nippo) +5:18
4) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma) +5:32
5) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) +5:33
6) Ben O’Connor (Australia/AG2R-Citroën) +5:58
7) Wilco Kelderman (The Netherlands/Bora-Hansgrohe) +6:16
8) Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan/Astana-Premier Tech) +6:30
9) Enric Mas (Spain/Movistar) +7:11
10) Mattia Cattaneo (Italy/Deceuninck-Quick Step) +9:48
26) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +55:15
58) Hugo Houle (Canada/Astana-Premier Tech) +1:34:46