Simmons second as Tour de France Stage 6 plays into the hands of the breakaway

The American champion displayed the stars and stripes proudly at the front of the race after being one of the first to launch from the peloton to help form the breakaway.

After a controlled start to the 201.5-kilometer stage from Bayeux to Vire-Normandie, which saw Lidl‑Trek take the lead to ensure Jonathan Milan could secure maximum points at the intermediate sprint, there was a chaotic race to form the day’s breakaway.

Simmons was quick to animate the race, making one of the first moves to draw out a group of eight riders that would eventually form the breakaway that contested for the stage win. However, the peloton didn’t let them go easily at first.

Rider after rider, and team after team, attempted to bridge across and close gaps before finally, after 70 kilometers of rapid racing, the situation began to settle, and the peloton allowed the break to build up a lead of two minutes which eventually went up further the deeper the group got into the race.

With the win up for grabs Ben Healy (EF Education First) launched his decisive solo attack with 42 kilometers remaining, and with the chase group not making any inroads, Simmons dug deep to attempt to bridge across with Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling)

The American national champion chased hard, giving it everything he could but, in the end, he had to settle for second place but the performance showcased Simmons’ form coming into the Tour de France.

Milan moved back to the top of Point Classification with 112 points, just four ahead of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin – Deceuninck).

Last week when I started diving into the stages I put a little check mark next to this day. It’s a hard day, I thought the break would make it. I thought if we race hard from the start like we did then we would have a good group of strong guys. I knew it was a good stage for me and after Jonny took the first sprint we went for it.

My first Tour I took a few shots from the breakaway but I couldn’t make it, to be honest, even if I said I had the level to fight for a stage win, just making the break was about the level I had. Of course it was super nice – I remember going in the break and pulling for Mads and he won the stage. I was good then but I’m a lot better now, and I’m doing it in the national jersey.

The start was quite hard but I think also, as a bunch we can’t let every stage be a sprint or a GC day otherwise Pogi will finish here with 8 stages, the sprinters will have their say, then two time trials and for the rest of the teams what do they take away? I think it’s a big opportunity anytime there’s a hard day like this, even having Skjelly as our GC rider, he’s someone that copes really well with sort of racing, so it’s not a bad thing to keep the racing going. As a group we’ve showed we’re super strong – twice second is not ideal but I’m sure someone gets it done in these three weeks.