Stage 19 Winner is ... ICE and MUD???

Each year's Tour de France brings me something new and exciting.  I'm not a lifelong viewer of the Tour de France, but in the 15 or so years that I've followed the world's most famous bike race with the interest of a physicist who modeled the event, I've never seen anything like what happened today.  As I wrote yesterday, and as any fan of the race probably suspected, the yellow jersey was attacked on the climb to the summit of Col de l'Iseran.  Julian Alaphilippe was giving it his all, but Colombian Egan Bernal simply dominated the climb to highest point (2270 m or 9088 ft) in this year's Tour de France.  I had no idea when I grabbed the screen capture of Bernal reaching the summit first that the summit would end up being the finish line for today's stage (click on image for a larger view).

Bernal began the descent as the virtual race leader.  Alaphilippe was hoping to make up time on the descent because he is an incredibly skilled downhill racer.  As the screen capture shows, he was a little more than two minutes behind Bernal (click on image for a larger view).

Alaphilippe then began flying on the descent, hoping to shave seconds off Bernal's lead (click on image for a larger view).

But then the stage was stopped!  Just passed one of the tunnels near Val d'Isère, a huge amount of ice, water, and mud had flowed onto the road (click on image for a larger view).

That didn't look as bad until the helicopters moved down the road (click on image for a larger view).

Race officials absolutely did the right thing.  Cyclists were approximately 10 km from what you see above, and there is no way the road would have cleared in just a few minutes.  Water and mud were still streaming down the hillside.  The plow was engaged in a seemingly futile attempt to clear water.

Alaphilippe was visibly angered by what happened.  He may have shaved several seconds off Bernal's lead during the descent, but would he have been able to do the same on the final climb?  Alaphilippe could have lost even more time instead of being 48 seconds behind Bernal going into the final mountain stage.

As for a model comparison, the best I can offer is the time our model predicted to the summit of Col de l'Iseran.  Entering today's stage, Egan Bernal had an accumulated time of 75h 20' 19".  He is now listed as leading the general classification at 78h 00' 42", but he earned an 8" time bonus today.  That gives Bernal a time of 2h 40' 31" to the point where the race stopped.  My model prediction to that point is compared to Bernal's time below.

• Stage 19:  2h 40' 31" (actual), 2h 49' 12" (prediction), 08' 41" slow (5.41% error)

That's the best I can do for today.  Would our model have caught up to cyclists on the final climb?  I've no idea, and I won't speculate.  I'll have to stick with what you see above.  Bernal's average speed to the stoppage point is given below.

• Stage 19:  9.26 m/s (33.32 kph or 20.71 mph)

Tomorrow's Stage 20 begins in the Olympic town of Albertville.  Cyclists will then travel 130 km (80.8 mi), first east, then south to the ski resort of Val Thorens.  After an early sprint, riders will have a category-1 climb to the 1968-m (6457-ft) peak of Cormet de Roselend.  The big finale will be the 33.4-km (20.8-mi) Hors catégorie climb to an elevation of 2365 m (7759 ft) at the finish line in Val Thorens.  Our prediction is given below.

• Stage 20:  3h 39' 46" (prediction)

How today's events will affect tomorrow's stage is anybody's guess.  Our model certainly can't predict that!  It will be exciting to see if Colombia will get its first Tour de France winner.  It's too bad that Thibaut Pinot had to abandon the race today with a torn quadriceps muscle while fifth overall in the general classification standings.  The hopes of everyone in France now sit squarely on Julian Alaphilippe.