There was more than one bit of history at the Tour de France on Tuesday, as Richard Carapaz became the first Ecuadorian to claim yellow, after Biniam Girmay won stage three to become the first black African to win at the Grand Tour.
However, you might have been a bit confused as to why Carapaz of EF Education-EasyPost pinched the race lead off Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), especially given they finished on the same time on Monday, and were on the same time after stage one and two, as well.
The answer is pretty simple, but interesting: countback.
When the lead of a stage race is so tight that two or more riders share the same time, the race leader for the next day is decided on the finishing place of the riders on the previous stage.
Therefore, Carapaz, Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) can all be on the same time overall, but one is in the race lead. On Monday, thanks to Carapaz impressively sprinting to 14th place and Pogačar frankly dawdling to 38th, the yellow jersey changed hands.
Here is the appropriate section from the UCI’s rulebook: “Where two or more riders make the same time in the general individual time placings, the fractions of a second registered during individual time trials (including the prologue) shall be added back into the total time to decide the order.
“If the result is still tied or if there are no individual time trial stages the placings obtained in each stage, except team time trial stages, shall be added and, as a last resort, the place obtained in the last stage ridden shall be taken into consideration.”
Essentially, Carapaz claimed yellow – which might just last a day, given stage four’s mountainous course – by way of “last resort”.
This would be impressive enough if it was down to sheer luck, but it wasn’t. It was planned.
“We did the maths last night. We looked at the results. So, we made a plan on how to get as many riders between those close rivals of Richie’s because the countback, if they are on equal time, is based on stage placings,” EF directeur sportif Charly Wegelius told NBC Sports.
Hence why EF’s Ben Healy sprinted to 37th place ahead of Pogačar – every place mattered, and it paid off.
“We knew it was risky; first big sprint of the Tour,” Wegelius continued. |We knew that it was a bit of a lottery because a lot of that was out of our hands, but we went for it and everyone in the team did a great job … all of them. They did so well, and luckily it came off.”
Carapaz and his EF teammates managed to avoid being caught up in the crash with 2.2km to go, which caused a split in the pack, and then the Ecuadorian sprinted to make history. Simple.
