Unbelievable ! Despite a very hard 4 EP start, teamcaptain Furey could not follow the s1 front peleton of 40.
And 4 out of the 5 helpers could follow the front peleton, even including the 2 silver helpers.
In a CFF race in division 1A, both silver helpers would probably go too slow with just +1 compared to their much better teamcaptain.
But it is the NT, now they were going faster than Furey.
Luckily Australia has a foxy manager who anticipated on strange situations in NT races.
Best helper Iverson had the doubtfull honor to start slow in case something weird happened.
And he was the only helper who was with Furey on the Portalet (s1), both in the 2nd group on 0:12"
Also very remarkable, both dropped on the Aubisque (s2) to the 4th group on already 0:41" !
And both used enough energy. Iverson even got the attack icon while he dropped from the 2nd group to the 4th group.
On the Tourmalet (s3) both had a much easier pace, and suddenly they came a little closer, still in the 4th group but now on 0:38"
The real attack of helper Iverson was planned on the Aspin (s4).
But despite he gave everything he had and used more energy compared to teamcaptain Furey as in the 3 previous sections,
very unexpectedly Furey was suddenly going much faster than helper Iverson who was now 21 (!) seconds behind Furey.
The good news was that Iverson launched his teamcaptain hard, and Furey came on the Aspin in the big 3rd chasing group on 0:36"
And there he met 3 helpers who had an unintentional so called "forward paws tactic".
Furey could profit perfectly of those 3 helpers on the climb and the descent of the Aspin, and they launched Furey into the final climb.
In the final climb to Val-Louron (s5)
Furey did amazing and he finished as
5º !
A more than excellent result in a bizarre mountain race.
Australia is still 5º in the season ranking. France is still leading and now has 100 points more than Australia, so we came 10 points closer.
Next week a difficult sprint race due to rain and storm.
