“I never believed that I could be up there when I came to the Tour,” says Florian Lipowitz. His cap is pulled down low, he runs his hand across his face where the first shoots of facial hair are just sprouting from his chin, and he looks down at the white jersey of the Tour de France that he is now wearing. “It’s only my second Grand Tour and I’ve only been cycling for five-and-a-half years,” he goes on, smiling. “If someone would have told me this five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it, so for sure this is a big dream come true.”
As the Tour de France departs the Pyrenees after three brutal mountain tests that have seen Tadej Pogačar race into a probably unassailable lead over Jonas Vingegaard, GC riders abandon (Remco Evenepoel, Mattias Skjelmose) and others suffer big collapses (Matteo Jorgenson and Enric Mas), it is Lipowitz who is in third and who tops the best young rider classification.
