Tour de France Daily | Stage 20 | Harry Sweeny takes his chance from the break

For the first 19 stages, Harry gave everything for his teammates, fighting for position to keep Ben out of the wind and pushing himself over high alpine cols if it meant he could give another minute of his strength for our squad. Today, he took his own chance.

After a ferocious start on the road out of Nantua, Harry attacked over the Côte de Valfin and got clear with a group of 12. It was one of the hardest breakaways to make in this entire Tour de France. With most of the peloton still desperate to get up the road and try to get a late win, stage 20 was raced like a one-day classic on a brutal parcours: 184.2 kilometers through the Jura mountains to Pontarlier in eastern France. Rain hammered down. Harry powered away from the pack.

As the peloton tried to chase, Neilson Powless, Ben Healy, and Kasper Asgreen marked moves, while up front, Harry rolled through, waiting for his moment to attack. He wanted to get ahead of the faster sprinters in his group. With just over 50 kilometers to go, he saw a chance and went for it. One rider from the break launched up a rise; Harry reckoned that if he could get up to him, they could work together and build an advantage. He bridged the gap, but when he pulled through, he saw the other rider was on the limit. Harry pushed on and dropped him. For almost 30 kilometers, he was solo at the front of the race with his lead hovering around a minute, but he couldn’t break the will of his chasers, who caught him at the base of the final climb.

Harry hung on up the Côte de Longeville, got dropped over the summit, but chased hard down the descent and onto the flat to rejoin the main break, though the day’s winner had already raced ahead.

Harry’s group rode flat-out all the way to the finish, where Harry sprinted in to take tenth place on the day. He was disappointed, but proud of the way he rode – today and over the course of the past three weeks.

Except fireworks from him and his teammates during the Tour’s grand finale tomorrow in Paris.

Read their thoughts from the finish of Stage 20 of the Tour de France.

I tried multiple times and by the time the break actually went, I was pretty tired, but kept a cool head. They said in the radio to go for it when Jegat attacked and I went across to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much left in the tank, so I went solo and then spent the next 45 minutes or so just battling it out. The group came back to me, though it was pretty heavily reduced. I did everything I could to to stay with them. Kaden had amazing legs and went solo. I didn’t really have much left for the sprint. All in all, I have to say I’m pretty disappointed, but still motivated for more, so I am going to have a big dinner tonight.

I love the Tour de France. It is always so special, even when you are suffering and having the worst day of your life out there, so to be riding at the front and enjoying the fans, it doesn’t really get much better than that in the world of cycling. Even though I am disappointed, it’s still super special to be here. Not every team can say they’ve won a stage and held yellow.

I’m super happy for Kaden too. If there was anyone that was going win, I’m happy it was him. We’ll drink some champagne in Paris.

It was a ballistic day. It was full gas from the start. Everyone wanted to be in the break. This was the last opportunity for that and you really saw that on the road. I actually had a really good day, but every time I looked behind me, Uno-X was on my wheel, so it was pretty difficult for me to get away today, but I gave it a good go.

Tomorrow’s stage is going to be a tricky one. It is going to be a tough finale, and we are going to have to see how the weather is and how the teams play it, but on my day, maybe it could be a nice race for me.

Winning on the Champs-Élysées is not something I would have traditionally dreamt of, not being really much of a sprinter, so this is a unique opportunity, I think.

Oh, man. The first hour, or two hours, five hours — the whole day was so hard. Wet roads, always on the pedals, not getting a good sit in the peloton, you just have to keep pushing. It was nice to hear that Harry was up there, racing for the win. That was really motivating for us in the peloton. We gave everything we had today.

Charly held a great meeting today to get the guys ready. They were ready to race, and it worked out to get Harry into the break.

Harry wanted to try on a long shot. He went on the climb when he saw a moment and then there was no way back. It’s not PlayStation.

Once he had 55 seconds, they opened the chase in the back. They got close, and then they passed him. He dropped, but freshened up a bit and at the end was in a group racing for place three. He just did a brilliant ride.

We haven’t lost one day or failed one day. We lost plenty of stages, obviously, but there was never a failure. It has just been great cycling. If you talk about team spirit, or positioning in the race, it’s a 10 out of 10. We can be proud to be part of this organization.