Alex Edmondson resembled Superman as he made a running start to stage 16 of the Tour de France, ditching time trial ceremony to mount his bike and begin the final week of the race in one fluid movement.
Blink and you would have missed Edmondson – who TV crews incorrectly referred to as his dsm-firmenich teammate Sam Welsford – as he skipped the traditional standing start with countdown in Passy for the hurried maneuver that Welsford repeated just moments after.
The confusion didn’t stop there, with another dsm-firmenich teammate, John Degenkolb, who was the next to depart, suffering skin abrasions to his leg after crashing on the first corner, where Nils Eekhoff would later also come down.
Edmondson tried to recover as much time after his miscue on the start line and arrived at the finish in Combloux dripping in sweat from the effort, the hilly terrain of the 22.4km test, and the heat. He ultimately placed 112th, 6:59 slower than the winning time of Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma).
“I would have loved to have given it a red-hot crack but it’s a pretty hilly spot,” Edmondson said.
Moments later Welsford, who went seven seconds quicker than his teammate to slot into 105th, rode up alongside him. The pair, speaking with endearing humility, held court in front of a huddle of journalists, trying to determine what happened at the start and the condition of their teammates who crashed.
“Yeah, what was that about?” Welsford asked Edmondson.
“Mate, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I was 11 [minutes] past [one], and you were 12 past,” Edmondson said of the scheduled departure times.
The 29-year-old was right about that, but the organised chaos of the Tour, after the second rest day, with human foot traffic, cars, bikes, vans and the team bus parked some 2km away meant they were late.
“I think they [officials] were early,” Welsford continued. “I don’t know. I was taking off my ice vest and rolled up and they were like, ‘Go, go’.”
Edmondson added: “It was like cyclo-cross. I had to do a running start.
“I literally was taking the ice vest off and then it was go time. Ran and jumped. It’s not really what you want to do at the Tour de France is it?
“But we didn’t do it on purpose. Let’s hopefully make the time cut.” Which of course they did.
The Tour has been a learning curve for the pair who are Olympic medalists on the track but are making their debut at the race this year.
Welsford has been gunning for sprint stages, which the team is now set to fully focus on with French climber Romain Bardet abandoning the Tour last week.
For Edmondson, 29, being at the Tour is the realisation of a long-term aim.
“I was always close but to finally be here is something that’s ticked that off. That’s been a goal,” he said.
“Obviously here with dsm-firmenich we haven’t had the results that we want. We had a bit of bad luck with Romain having to withdraw from a nasty crash the other day.
“But the special thing that we’ve done is we’ve got an awesome group going on at the moment. The atmosphere in the team is something that we’ve worked on really hard. It’s not through lack of trying and we’ve still got another six [five – ed.] days to go.
“So, it’s all about trying to finish things off as best we can.”
Getting to the sprints
The sentiment wasn’t lip-service either, as Edmondson pedalled over to Degenkolb at the finish, to check if the German, who was sporting a bloodied knee, was alright, having been unaware of his crash until told at the finish.
Degenkolb, the former Paris-Roubaix champion, is a Tour veteran but even he was confused on Tuesday morning, uncertain of how he came down.
“To be honest I really don’t know. I didn’t start like crazy, I didn’t start too enthusiastic. I think there’s always a first time for anything and that was I think to me the first time I’ve crashed in a TT,” Degenkolb quipped.
“That’s the last thing you want on day like this, so I’m lucky I didn’t break something. I got quite some road rash, and it was really unfortunate.
“I was on the white marks of the tarmac but normally it’s not a problem. I also could not correct it, so my front wheel was slipping, and I was straight away gone.”
Welsford will face stiff competition in the possible three remaining sprints that feature this week, after Wednesday’s queen stage that includes the Col de la Loze.
Edmondson, who claimed silver in the men’s team pursuit alongside Welsford at the Rio Olympics, has confidence in his compatriot’s speed, and the team has been working diligently on its lead-out throughout the Tour.
“It’s a tricky one to try and get the final right,” Edmondson said. “First time for me being here, it’s a learning curve but at the same time we know that he’s got the speed and it’s just about getting a little bit of luck in the final and also putting everything that we know that we can use, the horsepower, in the right place.”
Edmondson and the rest of the peloton will need to clear the Col de la Loze first, before they get another opportunity to sprint on Thursday.
“We’ve got a big day tomorrow with 5000 plus metres of climbing and it’s all about trying to get the big boys to help me through,” he said.
“We’ve had a pretty big grupetto. Some days it’s been better than others, with other people wanting to push harder and not looking after everyone.
“There’s a bit of time. There’s the stress of time cut so some people panic and other people don’t. But we’ve always just stuck together, with Nils, John and myself with Sammy. We’ve had a bit of fun. Sometimes it feels a bit weird. We get to the finish, and we’ve still got energy to laugh and joke but you see other people are dead.
“But it’s all just a learning curve, and I’m just really enjoying it.”
