The 2015 Tour de France has had quite an experience on the first alpine stage between Digne-les-Bains and Pra-Loup. On the same road where Bernard Thévenet dethroned Eddy Merckx, Simon Geschke (Giant Alpecin) found the strength to grab an unexpected solo victory after being in a break for more than 100 kilometers. 

A survivor from the escape group that at one time was 30 strong, the German Geschke still managed to retain a 30 second advantage over Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) in second, and 1’01’’ on Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quickstep) in third. IAM Cycling’s Mathias Frank was also active in the break, and succeeded in keeping his top-10 hopes alive by finishing the stage in fifth place, 1’40” behind the winner. 

With this performance he leaps to 8th place in the general classification, in no small part to a tangential explosion in the leader group behind. Christopher Froome arrived in the company of Nairo Quintana, 7’16” in arrears of the stage winner, and is still firmly entrenched in his position as overall leader. The only downside for the Swiss team came with the abandoning of Jérôme Coppel, who after four days of being ill, dismounted after racing 38 kilometers.

Sitting on the steps of the Swiss team’s bus, Mathias Frank was smiling and pleased when commenting about his day.  

“I was convinced that I could still play an active role in this stage because I already knew it from the Dauphiné Libéré. I knew I had to go on the offensive if I want to break into the top-10. So I made every effort to be in the right group to get away. With such a large group to begin with, it was the perfect scenario for the stage that I had already check in my race book.

"I remained attentive since in the team meeting we planned to initiate the action on the road to Allos. So I accelerated but Geschke had already slipped away and the gap ended up being too big to hope to reel him in. After a frightening descent of the pass, I mainly tried to finish as well as possible on the final climb.

"Now I will try to defend this 8th place overall, especially because there are still some demanding stages that are at least as difficult as today’s right up until Saturday evening.

Rik Verbrugghe, the manager sportif accompanied by Eddy Seigneur and Mario Chiesa, was pleased with the turn of events: 

“We did a good job of putting Mathias Frank in the break. It was not easy to get there, but after several attempts we succeeded. It should be noted that today we really weren’t racing with the idea of reaching the top-10 in our minds, but rather to win the stage. Obviously it was not easy because Mathias was alone in this break.

"He managed a very good attack, but that doesn’t mean we are just going to sit comfortably on this result. We will continue to race aggressively whether it is with Mathias, Jarlinson Pantano, or any other of our riders. Regardless our objective remains to grab a stage win before we finish on the Champs-Elysées.”