Yates finishes ninth at Tour De France

Tokyo 2020 20 Sep 20

Adam Yates rolled into Paris and said he was satisfied with ninth place after a Tour de France - hopefully - like no other. 

Yates wore yellow for four golden days in the opening week of the 2,165-mile epic, unexpected after a pre-Tour illness and talk of targeting stage wins. 

The stage win never came for Mitchelton-Scott but the British star secured a second top ten finish at the Tour and a third of his career in Grand Tours.

“All in all, I think we can be pretty happy,” said the 28-year-old, who finished fourth in 2016. 

“We set out to be aggressive early and we did that and came out with yellow for a few days, which was unexpected.

“We did all we could towards the end, had a couple of ups and downs and close calls.

“Every Tour is different. 2016 was quite a while ago now, and fourth is a better result than ninth, but it’s not every day you wear yellow.

“We can be happy with what we did and although we didn’t get the stage win we wanted, we’ll come back next year and keep trying.”

Yates struggled on the time trial in the penultimate stage, dropping from seventh to ninth and finishing 23rd in the stage, ending 9:25 down on eventual winner Tadej Pogacar. 

Experienced Welsh domestique Luke Rowe finished his fifth Tour De France as Ineos Grenadiers suffered from the withdrawal of reigning champion Egan Bernal. 

Debutant Hugh Carthy, 26, recovered from a crash in Stage 10 to work well for EF Pro Cycling and played a key role in Dani Martinez’s stage win in Puy Mary. 

And fellow Tour first-time Connor Swift was involved in the breakaway on the iconic final stage to underscore a memorable month for the 24-year-old.

Attention in the Grand Tour peloton now turns to the Giro d’Italia, Geraint Thomas’s key focus, which runs from 3-25 October.

The Vuelta a Espana comes hot on its heels from 20 October - 8 November, with Chris Froome set to feature.

Sportsbeat 2020

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