Le Creusot

LE CREUSOT, France — On the eve of the Tour de France’s first Alpine stage, the standings were given a serious shakeup.

The Bahrain Victorious team rider was part of a breakaway with 50km remaining and left his challengers to cross the line in Le Creusot one minute and 20 seconds ahead of Jasper Stuyven.

He went solo in the stage’s finale, using a tough climb to drop his remaining breakaway companions and reach the finish line in Le Creusot alone.

Speaking at a nuclear facility in the Burgundy town of Le Creusot, he called France’s nuclear weapons and atomic energy industry “the cornerstone of our strategic autonomy,” and said the nuclear sector plays a role in France’s “status as a great power.”

I met Grünberg in August 1988 at the International Colloquium on Magnetic Films and Surfaces in Le Creusot, a small town in the middle of France.