Oscar Onley of Picnic-PostNL finished stage 19 of the Tour de France exhausted but successfully moved within 22 seconds of podium placement. Despite being distanced earlier, he received crucial assistance from teammates, allowing him to rejoin the top group led by Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. Onley described the effort as difficult, highlighting the hard pace set by rivals. The team's strategy involved waiting in the valley to regroup, ensuring Onley was prepared for the final climb, although he was initially unaware of his success in the general classification.
"Um, yeah, it was hard. It was... I don't even know," were the first words he attempted to string together to the media gathered round him at the finish. "Visma just set a hard pace and I just did what I could."
Oscar couldn't follow the moves on the Madeleine and had to pace himself a little bit there," team Sports Director Matt Winston explained. "Unfortunately he was with quite some riders, but no one wanted to ride with him."
Instead of panicking or pushing forwards on his own, Picnic-PostNL's strategy for Onley was for him to wait for his teammates in the valley, who then helped pace him back up to the yellow jersey group.
We decided we'd wait in the valley for Warren [Barguil] and Frank [van den Broek] to come back to then bring him back to the peloton, which they did in a really good way and then were able to set him up for the final climb.
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