Tour de France: Victor (Lafay) at long last

He came to our attention yesterday, Stage 1, did Victor. Rubbing shoulders with Pogi and Jonas up at the pointy end. “Look at this French guy,” we said, vaguely recognising his name, chalking him down as one of those serial French losers, plucky but doomed, from a long line of losers.

Riding for Team Cofidis, in the Tour, you are reminded once every fifteen minutes that your French team, gifted a place at the top table each year, has failed to win a stage since 2008.

(It was Sylvain Chavanel, fact fans)

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So when Victor Lafay attacked the most select of select groups (Pogacar, Vingegaard, Pidcock, Van Aert, etc) with a kilometre to go on the streets of San Sebastien, we thought “ah Victor, you again,” assuming he’d decided to lose late on, in the finishing straight, rather than at some non-descript point somewhere near the middle of the stage, as is usually de-rigeur for Cofidis.

But Van Aert and the rest of the players hesitated for about three seconds (“who will chase this random Cofidis guy?”) and before you could say mon dieu the elastic between leader and chasers had stretched to that floppy overextended point it reaches pre-snap.

Dangling, in limbo, uncertainly.

The chasers roused themselves. Pressing hard on the pedals, sure, but holding a couple of percent in reserve, safe in the knowledge that the guy up the road had a red and white jersey on and it says ‘Cofidis’ across the front.

Around a tight left hander, arrowing down a wide boulevard finish bedecked with howling Basques, we held our breath. Lafay hovered in time. Perfectly on that cusp between he’ll never make it/HE MIGHT JUST MAKE IT!

HE MIGHT JUST MAKE IT!

Go on Victor lad…GOOOOOO!!

15 years of hurt come to an end for Cofidis 💛

Victor Lafay clinches @TeamCOFIDIS's first Tour de France stage win since 2008 👏#TDF2023 | @victorlafay pic.twitter.com/hib2I9e0y4

— Eurosport (@eurosport) July 2, 2023

A hundred metres to go, Van Aert pops out from behind his last teammate, all but wrenching his bike to pieces beneath him, a thousand watts of power torque-ing through every nut, bolt, and strand of carbon weave, limbs like great pistons, combusting, a dive for the line…

YES Victor!

Lafay wins.

Cofidis, unbelievably, wins!