“The arrival was really catastrophic” – Liberation

The climber from the Cofidis team is taking part in her second Tour de France this year. Every evening, after her stage, “Libé” backpedals with her. Today, stage 6 between Albi and Blagnac.

For the second consecutive summer, Morgane Coston is taking part in the Grande Boucle. A biology teacher, the 32-year-old runner put her job aside two years ago to devote herself fully to cycling. Every evening for a week, the climber from the Cofidis team tells Libé about her Tour stage. This Friday, July 28, during the sixth stage which ended in a sprint in Blagnac (Haute-Garonne), she finished at the same time as the Norwegian Emma Norsgaard Bjerg.

“Today was still a fairly nervous stage, with very small winding roads. At the end of the stage, there was a big group together. I found the finish catastrophic, with a lot of street furniture, very little announced central islands… The end was really tense and difficult.

“I plan on tomorrow’s stage, in the Pyrenees, with this finish at the Tourmalet. It’s bound to be special. I’m a little apprehensive about it, especially because the start is scheduled late, we’re not used to races at this kind of time [départ à 16 h 15, arrivée pas avant 19 heures, ndlr].

“Until then I’m going to try to recover to take as much pleasure as possible because it’s still a mythical stage. After the last stages which were difficult, it’s complicated to recover properly even if we try to make sure that everything goes more or less when we line up at the start.

“I think I won’t be really stressed because it will really be a stage where the favorites will be in front. My role will rather be to support Clara Koppenburg, our leader, as much as possible. I’ll do my best because right now, it’s clearly not in great shape. It will be different from last year’s mountain stages which were longer, with more passes. There it may be more nervous, there will be no respite. It’s definitely going to hurt a lot.”