Between two lakes, Lake Évian to the south and Lake Neuchâtel to the north, Paula Blasi, immersed in the magnitude of the Tour, and perhaps overwhelmed by the impact of every little word or movement, goes down for water, like another teammate of UAE, the team co-led by the Italian champion, Elisa Longo Borghini, who along with the other favorites for the final victory fights for the win on the Grand Oak Avenue of Lausanne, above the station, and loses. 31 degrees temperature in Switzerland where more than 20 is madness. It is a finish on a short and tough climb, the climb from the Olympic Museum, on the lakeshore, to the city center via the San Francisco hill, to the city, which eases in the last kilometer, where the Dutch Lorena Wiebes, the Sagan or Van Aert of the women’s peloton, withstands the attack of Demi Vollering, and, with terrible strength and speed, confidently writes her sixth victory in her Tour history.
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It is a steep and fast Tour, with trap stages every day, and already on the first day the favorites take it seriously. Longo Borghini is fifth, within the group of the big favorites – Vollering, Prévot, Newiadoma, and Reusser – and Blasi, who starts the climb in a bad position, it was so complicated to stay ahead among such explosive riders, is 12th, 8 seconds behind, the same time as Anna van der Breggen. The Polish Dominika Wlodarczyk, the other co-leader of the team who has involved the Spaniard in an unwanted controversy, suffered a fall at the start of the final climb and lost 37 seconds.
Much to the displeasure of the rider from Esplugues, the Blasi character keeps growing in the great amplifier that is the Tour, and she cannot take two steps without everyone noticing her. She goes up to the podium for the white jersey of best young rider, and while the UCI president himself dresses her, the speaker shouts out her past, winner of the Vuelta!, and anticipates her future, one of the big favorites for the yellow jersey! The Tour is a specialist in devouring the children who love it the most, and in destroying innocent minds.
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Ferrand Prévot, 34 years old, says she is not Pogacar even though she won the Tour last year, and plans to win it this year too, and loves Mont Ventoux, and that she is not interested in spending the year winning everything she races. “I only think about one goal a year, and that is the Tour,” says the Frenchwoman, who has reached an enviable level of simplicity, while Melissa Moncada, the president of her team, tells journalist Daniel Benson that if Blasi, 23 years old, stays with UAE she will immediately become the Tadej Pogacar of the women’s peloton. The message of love, accompanied by the lament over the “stupidity” of having fixed in the Spanish rider’s contract until December 27 a release clause of only 100,000 euros, comes late. Two teams, Lidl and Movistar, have already made moves to sign her, and salaries around one million euros per year are being talked about, and she has already said she will leave.
