Durango’s Quinn Simmons has been ready to show the skill and speed on the world stage that made him such a promising junior cycling prospect. He did that on Thursday at the Tour de France.
Simmons got in the breakaway during Stage 6 of the Tour de France and crossed the line in second out of 179 riders after 201.5 kilometers of riding, which started in Bayeux, France, and finished in Vire Normandie, France.
It was a day with over 11,000 feet of climbing with six categorized climbs for the riders.
Simmons, riding for Lidl-Trek, was near the front from the start and helped his teammate and top sprinter, Jonathan Milan, secure the maximum points in an intermediate sprint with about 179.2 km left.
The Durango native then attacked with about 178 km left and brought Ben Healy, riding for EF Education-Easy Post, with him.
About 13 km later, Simmons and Healy returned to the peloton just before Simmons crossed the king of the mountain line first after the first climb for two points toward the polka dotted jersey.
Then a group of five riders, including Simmons, broke away with about 132 km left. The breakaway group expanded to eight riders with about 121 km left in the stage. It took a little work, but the breakaway really left the peloton behind and was up 2:52 with 65 km left in the stage.
“My first Tour, I took a few shots from the breakaway, but I couldn’t make it, to be honest,” Simmons said in a Lidl-Trek press release. “Even if I said I had the level to fight for a stage win, just making the break was about the level I had ... I was good then, but I’m a lot better now, and I’m doing it in the national jersey.”
Healy broke away from the eight-man breakaway group with 43 km to go and had a 46-second gap to the breakaway group with 31 km left.
Simmons then responded with an attack of his own with 29 km left and Michael Storer, riding for Tudor Pro Cycling Team, caught Simmons and the two rode together until Storer attacked too early near the finish. Simmons responded by blowing by him on the climb up to the finish and he cruised to the finish line for second.
Healy crossed the line in four hours, 24 minutes and 10 seconds, 2:44 ahead of Simmons in second.
The second-place finish is Simmons’ best finish in a Tour stage in his career, beating his previous best of 11th in Stage 10 of the 2022 Tour.
“Last week, when I started diving into the stages, I put a little check mark next to this day,” Simmons said in a Lidl-Trek press release. “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 (Milan) took the first sprint, we went for it.”
Simmons’ career day catapults him to 61st in the general classification, up 33 spots from where he was in the GC after Stage 5.
Sepp Kuss remains in the top 40 of the GC after finishing 78th in Stage 6, 9:12 behind Healy. He dropped one spot to 37th and is 12:32 behind GC leader Mathieu van der Poel.
On Wednesday, the Tour had a time trial for Stage 5, with a flat 33 km loop starting and finishing in Caen, France.
Neither Simmons nor Kuss specializes in time trials. Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise to see Simmons finish 145th and Kuss finish 147th.
Kuss, riding for Visma-Lease a Bike, will be relied upon as a domestique in the mountains for team leader Jonas Vingegaard, who had a disastrous time trial and lost over a minute to GC rival Tadej Pogačar. The first mountain stage is Stage 10 on Monday.
After six stages, van der Poel leads the GC in 21:52:34. Pogačar is one second behind and Remco Evenepoel, riding for Soudal Quick-Step, is third 43 seconds back. Vingegaard is fifth, 1:14 back and fellow Visma-Lease a Bike rider Matteo Jorgenson is sixth, 1:23 back. Simmons’ teammate and Lidl-Trek GC rider Mattias Skjelmose is in 12th, 3:13 back.
Milan leads the points standings in the fight for the green jersey with 112 points, followed by van der Poel with 108.
Tim Wellens, riding for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, is first in the king of the mountain classification with seven points. Pogačar is second with five points and Simmons is seventh with the two points he secured during Stage 6.
Evenepoel leads the youth classification by 17 seconds over Arkéa - B&B Hotels’ Kévin Vauquelin. Simmons moved up six spots to 14th, 18:33 behind Evenepoel.
Kuss’ Visma-Lease a Bike squad has a commanding lead in the teams classification, 4:45 over UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Simmons’ Lidl-Trek team moved up to 15th, 25:27 behind Visma-Lease a Bike.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
