He kept looking around, but there was no one there. Like clockwork, Tadej Pogacar climbed up to the finish line in the Isola 2000 ski resort yesterday, then clenched his fists and proudly raised four fingers as a sign of his fourth stage win in this Tour de France. On the 19th stage, the Slovenian once once more demonstrated his power, extending his lead over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma) to a realistically unassailable 5:03 minutes in the battle for the yellow card as leader.
Pogacar, who won the Giro and the Tour in France in 2020 and 2021, is now very close to the double of winning the Giro and triumphing in Tour, which Marco Pantani last achieved in 1998. Austria’s Felix Gall had a lot of time to spare, having to let go at the Col de la Bonette, losing 12:06 minutes to Pogacar in the end and dropping from eleventh to 14th place in the overall ranking.
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The plan of Pogacar and his UAE team worked out perfectly. “Between the Giro and the Tour we were here for four weeks to train. We discussed then how we would approach this stage and that’s exactly what we did,” said the 25-year-old. With 8.6 kilometers to go, he once once more found himself out of his depth in the field of competitors. At the front was Vingegaard’s helper Matteo Jorgenson, who had previously been part of a nine-man breakaway group.
But the man in yellow quickly collected everyone one following the other, while Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel were no longer able to put pressure on him. The crying and completely exhausted winner from last year had to be consoled by his wife Trine. Last year, the picture was the opposite. Back then, the Slovenian had broken down in the Alps last week, and Vingegaard secured victory in the tour.
While Richard Carapaz, fourth in the stage and the first to cross the highest point of the Tour at Cime de la Bonette (2802 metres) yesterday, stole the mountain jersey from Pogacar and now has a good chance of keeping it until Sunday, the battle for the green jersey was also decided.
Three-time stage winner Biniam Girmay from Eritrea will end his outstanding Tour as winner of the points classification if he reaches the finish in Nice, making him the first African to do so. Girmay can no longer be mathematically caught by his Belgian pursuer Jasper Philipsen.
On Saturday, the last mountain stage will also feature four more climbs, including a mountain finish at the Col de la Couillole, before the final time trial in Pogacar’s adopted home of Monaco on Sunday. While Vingegaard can only hope for a blackout from Pogacar, it is Gall’s last chance to put on a good show.
