KoMs and QoMs aplenty as the pros race up the Col d’Izoard

There’s nothing like a summit finish for seeing new King of the Mountain (KoM) and Queen of the Mountain (QoM) times set on Strava. With the first stage of La Course and the 18^th stage of the Tour de France both finishing atop the Col d’Izoard, there was plenty of change on the leaderboards of some high profile segments.

Annemiek van Vleuten’s ride-title-cum-race-report said it all about her ride. “Solo win at d'Izoard! Attack with 4,5 km to go... #hurtbox! La Course”.

The Dutch rider, who takes a 43-second advantage over Lizzie Deignan into the innovative handicap time trial in Marseille on Saturday, completed the 67.5km route at an average speed of 31.6km/h. However, as she indicates herself, the meaningful effort was up the Izoard to finish.

Unsurprisingly, she became the new QoM for the Izoard from les Moulins segment, covering the 12.8km in 43m44s despite the 7% gradient.

Being as the winner of the day’s Tour de France stage was the race’s actual King of the Mountains, Warren Barguil, it was unsurprising that he should claim a few Strava KoMs in the process.

The most striking within his 183.1km ride was either the 29.8km Col d’Izoard or the 14.1km Col d’Izoard (versant sud) depending on your feelings about whether or not false flat approach roads should be included.

These longer climbs are often assigned any number of smaller segments, which explains how Van Vleuten claimed 14 QoMs and Barguil 12 KoMs.

The Frenchman would surely have had a few more if it weren’t for the efforts of Michal Kwiatkowski on the lower slopes.

The Team Sky rider picked up a whole bunch of KoMs himself, but our favourite segment was the one that showed him riding at around half the speed of Barguil for the final 5km after his sizeable effort in support of Chris Froome ended like this.