Belgian Remco Evenepoel lived up to his favourite’s tag in the individual time trial by winning stage five of the Tour de France on Wednesday, with defending champion Tadej Pogacar’s second place enough to take hold of the leader’s yellow jersey.
Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), Olympic and world time trial champion, covered the 33km around Caen in 36 minutes 42 seconds, 16 seconds ahead of Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), with Italian Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) rounding out the podium.
Slovenia’s Pogacar had moved level with Mathieu van der Poel at the top of the general classification after Tuesday’s stage win, and the time trial provided the expected first big shake-up in the race.
Pogacar now holds a 42-second lead over Evenepoel, who moved from ninth to second overall, with Van der Poel slipping to sixth, one minute 28 seconds down on the Slovenian who is aiming for his fourth Tour de France victory.
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Affini, riding his first Tour de France, set the early pace, and his leading time lasted almost three hours until Evenepoel upped the pace in the second half of the course.
The Belgian was four seconds down on the Italian at the second intermediate checkpoint, but the 25-year-old, who finished third last year on his Tour debut, showed his class and crossed the line 33 seconds faster than Affini.
“I didn’t really feel like I could go any faster, so I think in general I’m happy with this result,” Evenepoel said.
“I think what we saw in the intermediate, that I was always going up and also still gaining time in the last seven-eight kilometres. So I think I paced it perfectly, and everything was on point.”
Pogacar put in an impressive ride, almost losing control when taking a corner near the finish as he pushed to ensure Evenepoel gained as little time as possible overall, and it will be difficult to catch the champion now that he is in top spot.
Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost valuable time in his bid to wrestle back the title from Pogacar.
While the Dane only dropped from third to fourth overall, he went from eight seconds down on Pogacar to one minute, 13 seconds behind to leave Evenepoel as the man most likely to battle the Slovenian for the title.
Eddie Dunbar was the best of the Irish, finishing 30th in the time trial and moving up nine places on GC to 46th. Ben Healy came home 53rd and moved up two places to 33rd overall.
Thursday’s stage six is a 201.5km ride from Bayeux to Vire Normandie.
