Tour de France daily digest: Supremacy is fragile at the Tour de France

What a difference 10 months make at the Tour de France.

Has it only been 10 months since Jumbo-Visma put the Tour de France peloton in a vice-like headlock and delivered a painful and sweaty noogie? Yes, it has.

Memories are short in pro cycling, but let’s not forget that back in September 2020, the Dutch team ascended to the position of Tour de France bully and the rightful heir to Team Sky’s Fortress Froome. Jumbo-Visma won three stages. It crushed Egan Bernal so badly that the reigning Tour champ quit. It muscled the peloton around on flat stages, hills, and in the mountains.

Read more

• What’s next for Primož Roglič and Jumbo-Visma at the Tour de France?
• Primož Roglič’s run at GC takes a huge hit on stage 7

No, Jumbo-Visma did not win last year’s Tour de France, but the squad did showcase its collective might, and it ascended the throne as the strongest, brawniest team in WorldTour cycling.

And yet, today, less than one year later, Jumbo-Visma came apart at the seams, blown to the side of the road like dandelion seeds. It’s GC hope Primož Roglič succumbed to the painful injuries plaguing his back and ribs. Its multi-talented Belgian Wout van Aert chased in vain for the stage win, and to hold onto his second place on GC that everybody knows will evaporate on Saturday.

And in the group of GC favorites, Jumbo-Visma’s two other riders became passengers.

Hey, I’m not going to criticize Jumbo-Visma’s tactical decisions, as I’m a desk jockey and they are the paid professionals. Why did Wout van Aert ride for GC instead of dropping back to help his teammates — only Wout van Aert knows.

But I am going to point out that the strongest team of the 2020 Tour de France — the team that suplexed the race for 19 of 21 stages  — looked like just another squad today, chasing wheels, holding on, and praying for the finish line to come. And now, the squad’s best hope at this year’s race is, maybe, a stage win, or a top-5 placing for Jonas Vingegaard or Steven Kruijswijk.

We chronicled Jumbo-Visma’s slow and methodic rise to greatness over these past few seasons. Jumbo-Visma’s disaster today is a showcase for how tenuous and fragile a thing supremacy can be in this cruel and unpredictable sport. What three factors reduced the world’s top cycling team to pack fill? Appendicitis for Wout van Aert back in the spring. An errant elbow and some loose gravel for Roglič on stage 3. A careless fan who wanted to get on TV to say ‘hi’ to grandma and grandpa on stage 1.

Yeah, it doesn’t take much to topple greatness in pro cycling.

In stick-and-ball sports we see dominant squads tumble every few years. Oftentimes, we can trace the fall of dominance in the NBA, NFL, or Champion’s League soccer back to well-trodden tropes of human nature, such as jealousy, ego, greed, or complacency. Last year’s excellent documentary The Last Dance showed how Michael Jordan’s Bulls came to a premature end in part because of the ego of its general manager, Jerry Krause. Kevin Durant’s jealousy of Steph Curry doomed the Golden State Warriors. The New England Patriots succumbed to political infighting between quarterback and coach, as well as the march of time.

These reasons feel like tectonic forces when compared to what has doomed Jumbo-Visma over the past seven days. Yep — loose gravel, appendicitis, and a cardboard sign. That’s all that’s required in cycling to take down the baddest team of the last year.

What should we make of this? Well, Jumbo-Visma’s fall is hardly permanent, so we should always remember that failure and success in pro cycling are separated by tiny margins that can be impacted by a multitude of factors. Jumbo’s setbacks today could easily be undone by success next year.

For me, Jumbo-Visma’s setbacks simply make me appreciate cycling’s dominant teams and riders that much more. Love ’em or hate ’em, Team Sky and Chris Froome seem a lot more impressive after what we saw today, right? Dominance in our sport is like a Faberge egg in a mosh pit. One flick of the elbow or turn of the handlebar can bring the whole thing down.

OK, let’s see what went on in cycling social media today:

Stage 7 in social media