From our special correspondent at Isola 2000 – Tadej Pogacar won the queen stage of the Tour de France between Embrun and Isola 2000 on Friday, his fourth stage since the start of the Grande Boucle. His team muzzled Jonas Vingegaard all day before delivering the final blow on the final climb.
Published on: 07/19/2024 – 04:34 PMModified on: 07/19/2024 – 05:53 PM
3 mn
The mountain will have finally given birth to a mouse. The 19th stage of the Tour de France displayed an extraordinary program with three monstrous passes and nearly 4,000 meters of positive elevation gain. A playground on paper conducive to the overthrow of the Tour by its outgoing winner, Jonas Vingegaard. Nothing worked. Tadej Pogacar and his team muzzled the Dane all day before grabbing the final victory.
The Visma-Lease a Bike team thought they might console themselves with a victory for Matteo Jorgenson, the last survivor of the breakaway, but the Slovenian caught up with him less than 2 km from the line.
Girmay, green jersey if he doesn’t give up
The queen stage had started quietly on the banks of Lake Serre-Ponçon. A group tried to quickly get away. The 22 riders also competed in the intermediate sprint in Guillestre, at the gates of Queyras. A sprint won by the Frenchman Bryan Coquard, who consolidated his third place in the green jersey classification. Above all, it confirmed the final victory of the Eritrean Biniam Girmay ahead of Jasper Philipsen in the same classification. Unless there is a withdrawal.
And with almost 100 km to go, the flat is already over. The selection is done logically and only a group of nine solid climbers remains: Jorgenson, Kelderman (Visma-Lease a Bike), S. Yates (Jayco AlUla), Prodhomme (Decathlon-AG2R), Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Rodriguez (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Onley (dsm-firmenich) and Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost). It is also the latter who takes the lead on the Col de Vars, the first hors-categorie of the day.
Behind, UAE Emirates is leading at a hellish pace and quickly thins out the peloton, reduced to its bare minimum from the first slopes of the monster of the day: the Cime de la Bonnette, the highest asphalt pass in Europe, which rises to more than 2,800 meters above sea level. Faced with the mistreatment inflicted by the Emiratis, Jonas Vingegaard quickly finds himself alone and dissuaded from going on the offensive. On the imperial road, Tadej Pogacar’s yellow throne is never in danger. A great lord, he nevertheless gives up his polka dot jersey to Richard Carapaz who takes the 40 points offered at the summit of the Tour de France.
Pogacar wins the stage
On the first slopes towards Isola 2000, Soler, Sivakov and Adam Yates push even harder on the pedals. Jonas Vingegaard is in survival mode. Greedy, Tadej Pogacar sees himself winning his fourth stage on this Tour. That’s without counting on Jorgenson, who gets permission from Visma-Lease a Bike to play his personal card and abandons his breakaway companions.
The yellow jersey attacks 8.6 km from the summit, leaving his runners-up Vingegaard and Evenepoel behind. A mano a mano ensues between the winner of Paris-Nice and Tadej Pogacar – won by the Slovenian.
With this new stage victory, Tadej Pogacar has won ten Grand Tours in 2024. A gargantuan number, worthy of his nickname “Cannibal”. And there are two stages left.
