Johannesbrug - Despite dropping from second to fifth place in the team standings, MTN-Qhubeka still gave a great account of themselves in the 19th stage of the Tour de France on Friday.
The stage would be the toughest day of racing yet.
Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) would secure the stage win ahead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar) with race leader, Chris Froome (Team Sky) finishing third.
Although the stage was only a short 138 kilometres, it would be toughest day of racing in the Tour de France this year.
Starting from kilometer zero with a category one climb, the peloton exploded during those first 15km of up-hill racing.
Merhawi Kudus was one of the first attackers on the climb and Daniel Teklehaimanot and Steve Cummings were also very active on the steep gradients.
By the top of the first climb there was no actual break but only around 20 odd riders made up the peloton, including Teklehaimanot.
On the descent a number of riders were then able to make contact with the front of the race again, Cummings and Serge Pauwels were two of the riders were descended their way back into contention.
As they hit the valley floor a few more attacks followed which saw Cummings join 20 riders in the only real escape of the day.
Teklehaimanot missed the move initially but then rode across a 45-second gap on his own to join Cummings upfront.
The peloton continued to swell as the break rode ahead to a lead of two minutes.
The break then hit the longest climb of the race, the 22.4km Col de la Croix de Fer where again, the race would explode.
The main General Standings contenders would dictate proceedings from here on while every other rider would just try to limit their losses. The entire break was caught on the HC category climb, except for Pierre Rolland (Europcar), but the Frenchman was soon caught and then later passed by a solo Nibali.
Nibali would start the final climb of the day, the cat 1 La Toussuire with a 2:20 lead over a very select yellow jersey group.
Pauwels was a further minute down the road and Teklehaimanot and Kudus were trailing the Belgian rider by another 45 seconds. The final climb would sort the strong riders from the strongest, and Pauwels eventually crossed the line in 21st place, good enough to move up one more place on the GC to 13th.
Kudus and Teklehaimanot fought valiantly to try and keep the African team’s competition dreams intact, as they crossed the line in 26th and 33rd respectively. Despite their best efforts they would still drop from 2nd to 5th place out of the 22 teams in the team competition.
Pauwels said afterwards: “Today was a very tough stage. The GC contenders like Contador already started attacking on the very first climb of the day which was a bit surprising and it also made the racing a bit different to the previous days.
“I could feel the efforts of the last few stages but I remained confident and just stayed within my limits.
“I was really well supported by my teammates who did a fantastic job for me. Steve Cummings stayed with me on the first climb and then later on also Merhawi, Daniel and Steve again, helped me on the Croix der Fer when the race really exploded.
“They helped me to make up as much time as possible. In the end I think I actually did pretty well, I didn’t have these big accelerations to follow the best guys but I rode for what I was capable of today and I’m super happy that I could move up one place on the GC.
“It means a lot of riders were struggling today and I will try and defend it tomorrow with Paris just around the corner.”
ANA