A fortnight before the start of the Tour de France, EF Education-EasyPost might have been contemplating whether they made a mistake in signing Richard Carapaz. The Ecuadorian had just pulled out of the Tour de Suisse due to injuries sustained in a crash and then fallen ill immediately after, the latest setbacks in a string of fitness and form problems that have plagued him since signing for the team for the 2023 season.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. Carapaz has been the team’s marquee signing, the man that team manager Jonathan Vaughters hoped would propel them to being a GC force capable of challenging for overall victories at Grand Tours. On his palmarès, he had a Giro d’Italia title, as well as podium finishes at the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, and was reigning Olympic champion.
Such pedigree didn’t come cheap, and for a team with a moderate budget, he was a huge investment. The hope was that he would be worth it, but things got off to a difficult start when he struggled for form during the first half of 2023 and then crashed out on the very first day of the Tour de France — his main ambition for the year. His problems continued into this season, where patchy form saw him occasionally shine when, at last, he ended his winless streak for the team at WorldTour level with a stage at the Tour de Romandie in April but mostly continued to fall short of his best.
Today, EF Education-EasyPost, at last, got to see their investment start delivering returns. Having got himself into the large breakaway group of nearly 50 riders that managed to go clear after a long, seemingly never-ending fight for a breakaway to form, Carapaz launched an attack on the penultimate climb of the day, Col du Noyer, which nobody followed. He was pursuing Simon Yates (Jayco Alula), who had made his own solo move earlier on the climb and managed to catch him halfway up before going clear of him before the summit. From there, he was able to solo to the finish at SuperDévoluy to take a comfortable win by over half a minute.
Image by James Startt
It was the perfect way for Carapaz to bounce back after his GC bid had come apart earlier in the race in what has been a rollercoaster of a Tour for the Ecuadorian. His race could barely have gotten off to a better start when he was the only rider who managed to accompany Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) on stage two after the former riders attacked on the final climb, then took the yellow jersey the following day. That in and of itself was a major result for both him and EF Education-EasyPost, but, even more excitingly, Carapaz was at last showing form to suggest he could again compete for the top spots on GC at a Grand Tour – the first time since finishing runner-up at the 2022 Giro d’Italia.
That dream lasted a mere day, however, after he was surprisingly dropped on the Col du Galibier on stage four to lose over five minutes, then continued to slide further down the classification in the subsequent stages. But that slump was only a temporary loss of form, and he has since been back to climbing at somewhere near his best level again — this time to target stage wins rather than a high GC.
When the race hit the mountains of the Massif Central on stage eleven, he immediately burst into life, attacking constantly before finally going clear as part of the day’s break, and seemed poised to compete for the stage win before UAE Team Emirates worked to bring them back. Four days later, during the last day in the Pyrenees, he looked even stronger, getting into the break once more. But he distributed his energy badly, constantly having to play catch up when not initially following the moves. The break was caught again that day, but once more, Carapaz was the strongest in it, hanging on for a ninth-place finish atop the Plateau de Beille. Today, he finally made the most of this red-hot form, timing his efforts perfectly to reel in Simon Yates and achieve glory at the finish.
Image by ASO
The result was a triumph both for Carapaz and his EF Education-EasyPost team. In a Tour that has been cruel to breakaways, they have been the most persistent, trying imaginatively and inexhaustibly to come up with ways to try and win a stage. Given Carapaz’s uncertain form going into the race, they selected a team geared towards targeting stage wins rather than the GC and stayed true to that promise, with all eight riders on their roster familiar presences at the front of the race. Yet for all the eye-catching attempts from the likes of Alberto Bettiol, Neilson Powless, and especially Ben Healy, it was their marquee man who ultimately delivered.
So what next for Carapaz? In the short term, we can expect him to continue capitalising on his current form and freedom and target more stage wins, specifically on the consecutive days in the high Alps coming up on Friday and Saturday. The polka-dot jersey may also be in his sights, given that he today rose to sixth place in the King of the Mountains classification, 43 points adrift of Pogačar – points he could claw back if he can get into the day’s breaks in the Alpine stages. Looking further ahead, though disappointed by his snub from the Ecuadorian Olympic team that will prevent him from defending his road race title in Paris, an appearance at the Vuelta a España could be on the cards. Now, back to his best and delivering his results for EF Education-EasyPost, that could be the race he at last becomes a Grand Tour contender for them. Watch this space.
*Cover image by ASO
