Friday, July 19, 2024 at 4:34 PM
Tadej Pogacar leaves no crumbs for the competition in the 2024 Tour de France. Visma | Lease a Bike seemed to be on its way to the stage victory in Isola 2000 with Matteo Jorgenson for a long time, but the American was overtaken in the final kilometers by the unleashed Slovenian. The latter also delivered a hammer blow to Jonas Vingegaard.
En avant! After two entertaining transition stages for the escapees, today was another very important day for the men of the general classification. In the penultimate mountain stage of this Tour de France, the riders raced from Embrun over two Alpine giants to finish on the climb towards Isola 2000. In ‘only’ 145 kilometers, the tired riders had to deal with some 4,500 meters of altitude. Today there might certainly still be a revolution in the battle for the yellow jersey.
From the starting point Embrun, the riders rode over rolling roads towards the foot of the Col de Vars (18.8 km at 5.7%). A descent brought the riders to the foot of the Cime de la Bonette (22.9 km at 6.9%). This Alpine pass took the riders to a dizzying height of 2,802 metres and was thus the roof of the 111th Tour de France. Almost nowhere else in Europe can you reach higher altitudes than here on paved roads. But there was no question of resting following the Bonette, with the final climb to Isola 2000 (16.1 km at 7.1%) as a very tough dessert.
Visma | Lease a Bike puts pressure on leader Pogacar
That things were serious for Visma | Lease a Bike today was clear from the start. The Dutch formation hoped to put leader Tadej Pogacar under pressure and so Christophe Laporte, Wilco Kelderman and Matteo Jorgenson were ordered to attack. They turned out to be the instigators of a large leading group, with interesting names such as Michal Kwiatkowski (INEOS Grenadiers), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Ilan van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost).
Wilco Kelderman forces the breakaway – photo: Cor Vos
EF Education-EasyPost was – despite the presence of Powless – not happy with the composition of the 22-man leading group and tried to right the wrongs in the service of Richard Carapaz. At the foot of the first climb of the day, the Col de Vars, the lead of the Visma | Lease a Bike group was almost gone. This was the signal for Carapaz, Egan Bernal, Romain Bardet and Simon Yates to counterattack, hoping to bridge the gap.
Serious screening, UAE Emirates controls the course
The differences were still playable at that point, because the peloton – where most sprinters went overboard – was not far yet. On the flanks of the almost twenty-kilometre long Col de Vars, the race was fierce and the leading group fell apart completely. At the head of the race, nine riders managed to survive the selection: Jorgenson, Kelderman, Van Wilder, Hindley, Carapaz, Simon Yates, Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon AG2R) and Cristian Rodríguez (Arkéa-B&B Hotels).
And the peloton? It was led by the men of UAE Emirates and had been reduced to regarding forty riders. Led by Marc Soler and Pavel Sivakov, a solid pace was set, but the gap to the leading group grew to more than three minutes. With just over a hundred kilometers to go, the nine leaders reached the top of the Col de Vars. Carapaz was the first to reach the top and was able to add twenty mountain points to his account. The Ecuadorian was clearly out to conquer the polka dot jersey.
A particularly strong Nils Politt once once more impressed as a master servant – photo: Cor Vos
Climbing to dizzying heights
The escapees started – following an incident-free descent of the Col de Vars – with a lead of regarding four minutes on the first climbing sections of the exceptionally long and above all high Cime de la Bonette. This was the moment for Jorgenson to open the throttle and this proved disastrous for Onley, Prodhomme and Van Wilder. This trio had to shift down a gear, leaving six riders at the head of the race. In the group of favourites too, one rider following another went overboard, under the impetus of a super strong Nils Politt.
The German, who is not known as a winged climber, managed to surpass himself on the Cime de la Bonette and thin out the group of favorites considerably. It went too fast for strong climbers such as Louis Meintjes, Tiesj Benoot, Geraint Thomas and even Felix Gall, who was number eleven in the rankings before the start. Before the stage, the Austrian still had a chance of a top 10 ranking in Nice, but clearly had a day without and would therefore also take a dive in the general classification.
No spectacle at Cime de la Bonette
UAE Emirates was clearly hatching a plan and made the race hard in the service of the man in the yellow jersey, who was still very well surrounded by Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler, Adam Yates and João Almeida. Vingegaard, on the other hand, was already on his own, but with Kelderman and Jorgenson he still had two teammates who might drop back if necessary. However, this turned out not to be necessary, because the hoped-for fireworks failed to materialize. Vingegaard stayed in the saddle and the other classification riders made no attempt to do anything either.
The tireless Carapaz did excellent business for the mountain jersey – photo: Cor Vos
In the front group, the six remaining riders also rode fraternally to the top, where we saw the same picture as on the Col de Vars: Carapaz was not hindered in the slightest and thus took the full amount (forty) of mountain points. With this, he passed Vingegaard and Pogacar in the battle for the polka dot jersey and might call himself leader in this side classification. And Carapaz was able to increase his total points even further, because at the top of the climb to Isola 2000 – for the stage winner – another ten points were up for grabs.
Kelderman paves the way for Jorgenson
At the foot of the sixteen kilometre long final climb, the difference between the attackers and the Pogacar group was still four minutes and so the leaders might dream of a very prestigious stage victory in Isola 2000. Visma | Lease a Bike clearly went for the day’s victory and so Kelderman rode his lungs out in the first climbing kilometres for his American teammate Jorgenson. Cristian Rodríguez was the first rider to give in to Kelderman’s racing force and not much later Hindley also went dark.
At 13.5 kilometers from the top, Jorgenson felt his moment had come. With a powerful acceleration, the Visma | Lease a Bike rider jumped out of Kelderman’s wheel and immediately made a nice breach. Carapaz and Yates were unable to respond, although the tireless Ecuadorian did not intend to bury his hatchet just like that. However, Carapaz was shadowed by an extremely strong Kelderman, who, as a model teammate, managed to carry out his work to perfection.
Once once more, there was no cure for Pogacar – photo: Cor Vos
Pogacar delivers uppercut to Vingegaard
But Carapaz still had some juice in his legs and rode away from the exhausted Kelderman and Yates on the steeper sections of the final climb, on his way to Jorgenson? And the favorites? Despite the reassuring lead of leader Pogacar, UAE Emirates decided to put the tendon to it once more uphill. Adam Yates pulled out the wrecking ball and his pace was soon too high for three men in the provisional top 10: Giulio Ciccone, Santiago Buitrago and Carlos Rodríguez, number six in the standings.
Yates’ turn at the front proved to be the start of a breakaway by Pogacar, who managed to ride away from Evenepoel and Vingegaard with striking ease – from the saddle. Where the Dane had tried to follow his Slovenian opponent in the previous mountain stages, he was now only fixated on the rear wheel of Remco Evenepoel. A now unleashed Pogacar picked up early escapees Kelderman, Hindley, Carapaz and Simon Yates in the meantime and even seemed to be on his way to leader Jorgenson, who saw his lead shrinking.
Everything is for Pogacar!
With three kilometres to go, Jorgenson’s lead had shrunk to fifteen seconds and he seemed to be falling prey to the glutton from Komenda. The Slovenian smelled blood, closed the last gap on Jorgenson and had no mercy on the Visma | Lease a Bike rider. The ruler of this Tour passed his last ‘competitor’ in a flash and soloed to another impressive and memorable stage victory. And even more importantly: he now managed to put the Tour in a decisive fold.
A bow from the grandmaster – photo: Cor Vos
The unfortunate Jorgenson had to admit defeat to the Slovenian cycling prodigy in extremis, but following a day on the attack he still came in second, ahead of his breakaway companions Simon Yates and Carapaz. Then it was a while before Vingegaard and Evenepoel came in. Numbers two and three in the classification had to give up almost two (!) minutes to Pogacar at the finish.
RIT AK PNT MOUNTAIN YOUTH
