Jonas Vingegaard crushed Tadej Pogacar’s hopes of reversing his 10-second deficit in the Tour de France by opening up a huge overall lead in the stage 16 time-trial, dramatically ending days of shadow boxing through the French Alps.
The defending champion had always insisted the race would not be decided by seconds and he appears to have been right. The Dane’s devastating performance in the 22.4km “race of truth” from Passy to Combloux ensured that a cliffhanging showdown between the pair is now unlikely to materialise.
Pogacar, in contrast, looked and sounded crestfallen. “I couldn’t have done anything more today,” the 24-year-old said.
“I was at my limit. Maybe it wasn’t my best day, but the Tour isn’t finished yet, even if Jonas took a lot of time. I’m a bit surprised, because I felt I was doing a solid time-trial, but at the end the gap was big. Anyway, I gave it my all. It’s not over – we have a very hard stage tomorrow. We’ll try to find a plan and execute it but it’ll be hard to recover almost two minutes.”
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Vingegaard now leads his UAE Team Emirates rival by one minutes and 48 seconds in the Tour’s overall standings. With two summit finishes remaining, Wednesday’s stage 17 to Courchevel altiport and stage 20 to Le Markstein, the die appears finally to be cast. “We prepared for this for so long,” the Dane said, “and today all the hard work paid off.”
Deliberately kept in the dark about his progress by his team car, Vingegaard stuck to the task and made the biggest gains in the closing kilometres. “They will never tell me the time gaps but, in the end, they told me I was really doing well and I could see Tadej’s team car, so that also gave me a lot of motivation that I was really doing a good time-trial.”
Vingegaard gained time from the off. The 26-year-old rolled down the start ramp and was immediately, visibly, faster than his rival, cutting corners and accelerating into the straights at higher speeds than Pogacar.
A 16-second lead at the first time check became a 31-secondmargin at the foot of the decisive Côte de Domancy climb, where Pogacar swapped his time-trial bike for a standard road bike, 2kg lighter. It was a gamble that failed to pay off and the 2020 and 2021 champion seemed to lose momentum even further.
On the 2.5km climb, Pogacar lacked the fluency and power that have characterised his performance for most of the race, while Vingegaard showed no signs of flagging. “The last climb was all out,” the Dane said. “Keep pushing, keep believing, keep suffering.”
As they approached the line, the overall margin between the pair was well over a minute and a half and Vingegaard, the last man off, was rapidly closing on his rival.
Ahead of Pogacar, Carlos Rodríguez fought to retain a podium position but Adam Yates, Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates team-mate, leapfrogged the Spaniard by five seconds and is now third overall.
But as Pogacar noted, it may not yet be all over. On Wednesday, Vingegaard must preserve his lead over the highest climb in the Tour, the Col de la Loze, and also stave off any UAE Emirates ambushes on the stage’s four recognised climbs.
With both Pogacar and Yates in the top three, his team have tactical options, although with Vingegaard now comfortably in the lead and the Slovenian running out of road it will take a Herculean effort to unseat him. – Guardian
