UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar maintained his three-minute-plus overall lead in the Tour de France as Victor Campenaerts secured a perfectly-timed victory in the Alps on Thursday's Stage 18.
Campenaerts was in the leading breakaway trio with Michal Kwiatkowski and Matteo Vercher, with the Belgian biding his time behind the other two riders before exploding into a powerful sprint in the final 200 metres to take his first ever Tour stage win.
Pogacar rolled home in the yellow jersey 14 minutes down on the stage winner and there were no changes in the top 11 of the overall standings as the GC rivals came in unscathed.
The Slovenian remains three minutes and 11 seconds clear of Visma-Lease a Bike's Jonas Vingegaard with Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-Quick Step 5 mins and 9 secs behind Pogacar as they head into the race's final three stages – the last of which ends in Nice on Sunday.
Campenaerts, a former one-hour world record holder, wept at the finish line as he spoke with his wife by video link.
In many ways, Campenaerts shared the limelight on Thursday with the 20km-long artificial lake Serre-Poncon with turquoise blue waters that run off the Alps to 90m deep in spring.
Campenaerts, Kwiatkowski and Vercher broke away and surged ahead about 35km from the finish and the trio kept the pressure on as a group of five riders attempted to catch up.
But they managed to hold the chasing pack at bay with a comfortable pace up front until the final sprint where Campenaerts hung back while Kwiatkowski led, constantly looking over his shoulder.
Campenaerts eventually kicked into gear to overtake both riders who gave chase in vain as Vercher, who crashed earlier in the neutral zone at the start of the stage, finished second and Kwiatkowski third.
“As a real professional you have to ride the Tour de France, finish the Tour de France, but winning a stage in the Tour de France is everybody’s dream,” he said.
“I’ve been dreaming about this for a very long time. After the Classics, I had a very difficult time. I had a verbal agreement with the [Lotto Dstny] team about extending my contract. I got ignored for a long time and it was very difficult.
“I was at a long altitude [training] camp but my girlfriend was there, she supported me every day, [while] heavily pregnant.
“I was struggling to finish my training schedules but I changed my mind. I have a bright future now, still in cycling.
“I became a father and it was like, only blue skies. I started to feel very good on the bike and I came to this Tour de France with a super-motivated team, with a super good atmosphere in the team. This is just the sum of this atmosphere in the team and we’re going to celebrate tonight.
“The support I have from my girlfriend is incredible, she's always there for me. We spent nine weeks in the altitude camp, she gave birth to our son at the bottom of the climb in Granada. She is the hero in this story.”
The final three stages are all potential game-changers with Friday's run taking the peloton to 2800m altitude before a huge descent sure to provide an edge-of-the-seat experience for the armchair viewer.
Saturday is also a steep stage with two mountains and another downhill finale. But the final stage could shake up the standings even more with a 34km individual time trial from Monaco to Nice.
Stage 18 result
1. Victor Campenaerts (Bel/Lotto-Dstny) 4hrs 10mins 20secs
2. Matteo Vercher (Fra/TotalEnergies) Same time
3. Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol/Ineos Grenadiers)
4. Toms Skujins (Lat/Lidl-Trek) +22secs
5. Oier Lazkano (Spa/Movistar) Same time
General classification
1. Tadej Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates) 74hrs 45mins 27secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den/Visma-Lease a Bike) +3mins 11secs
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel/Soudal- Quick Step) +5:09
4. Joao Almeida (Por/UAE Team Emirates) +12:57
5. Mikel Landa (Spa/Soudal-Quick Step) +13:24
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UAE fixtures
Thursday, February 8 v Kenya; Friday, February 9 v Canada; Sunday, February 11 v Nepal; Monday, February 12 v Oman; Wednesday, February 14 v Namibia; Thursday, February 15 final
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
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The Programme
Saturday, October 26: ‘The Time That Remains’ (2009) by Elia Suleiman
Saturday, November 2: ‘Beginners’ (2010) by Mike Mills
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The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Tomorrow 2021
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Fixtures
Friday Leganes v Alaves, 10.15pm; Valencia v Las Palmas, 12.15am
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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Specs
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Major honours
ARSENAL
- FA Cup - 2005
BARCELONA
- La Liga - 2013
- Copa del Rey - 2012
- Fifa Club World Cup - 2011
CHELSEA
- Premier League - 2015, 2017
- FA Cup - 2018
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SPAIN
- World Cup - 2010
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Bert van Marwijk factfile
Born: May 19 1952
Place of birth: Deventer, Netherlands
Playing position: Midfielder
Teams managed:
1998-2000 Fortuna Sittard
2000-2004 Feyenoord
2004-2006 Borussia Dortmund
2007-2008 Feyenoord
2008-2012 Netherlands
2013-2014 Hamburg
2015-2017 Saudi Arabia
2018 Australia
Major honours (manager):
2001/02 Uefa Cup, Feyenoord
2007/08 KNVB Cup, Feyenoord
World Cup runner-up, Netherlands
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Asia%20Cup%202022
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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