Rip up the script and begin once more. Three days after 2024 Tour de France race chief Tadej Pogačar was being requested in press conferences if Jonas Vingegaard had gained the higher hand of their GC duel, at Pla d’Adet on stage 14, the UAE Team Emirates chief delivered essentially the most convincing of solutions on the highway to that specific query. And after his newest spectacular solo mountain-top stage victory, few would doubt if Pogačar is again in full command of the Tour.
It´s at present an actual rollercoaster of a Tour GC battle, although, and simply to evaluation the previous few developments, on stage 11 within the Massif Central, Pogačar’s capacity to drop Vingegaard on the brutally steep slopes of Puy Mary briefly had all the texture of an assault that might determine your complete Tour de France. And if Vingegaard was in hassle when Pogačar blazed away that day, even when Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) put up a gutsy rearguard motion, the rest of the GC rivals seemed even much less prone to threaten the Slovenian.
However, the best way Visma-Lease A Bike chief not solely clawed his approach again into competition on stage 11 however then outsprinted Pogačar instantly set the cat among the many pigeons. More than the victory itself, Vingegaard´s capacity to get again on phrases with Pogačar was a massively important psychological blow, given how hardly ever (if in any respect) Pogačar has been really challenged in his stage racing objectives this season.
And so the race got here to Pla d’Adet and stage 14, which ended up being the ninth Tour de France stage the place Pogačar and Vingegaard claimed the highest two positions on the day. As a results of their outmatching the remainder of the sector, Evenepoel has dropped from second to 3rd on GC, too, leaving the Dane and the Slovenian on the prime of the general, simply as has been the case for the final three years within the Tour.
But if Vingegaard exceeded expectations within the two-up dash in Le Lioran, at Pla d’Adet it was Pogačar who rose to the event, fairly probably even past his personal hopes. His primary thought, Pogačar stated afterwards had been to battle for a small group dash. Instead, he claimed practically 40 seconds benefit on the Dane, taking his thirteenth Tour stage win and significantly buttressing his total benefit, too – to a complete of practically two minutes.
So if Vingegaard was the ethical victor of the earlier excessive mountains battle at Le Lioran, this newest success as soon as once more offers Pogačar the GC momentum he risked shedding so badly three days in the past. Rather than Vingegaard routinely getting the higher hand within the second and third week as he rides into full race type – and as occurred within the 2023 Tour and other people have been all however taken with no consideration after stage 11 and Le Lioran – the Slovenian has dramatically stemmed the tide.
The Pyrenees are removed from over, although, and Vingegaard may effectively be seeking to inflict some critical harm on the even tougher stage 15, which accommodates each the best elevation achieve of your complete Tour – 4,800 metres – and a minimum of 5 cat.1 or higher-ranked climbs. It´s price remembering Plateau de Beille, the final and hardest of them, has proved a significant turning level in 4 Tours – most notably in its debut 12 months within the race in 1998, when total winner Marco Pantani gained his first important time hole on arch-rival Jan Ullrich en path to the exact same Giro-Tour double that Pogačar is seeking to seize.
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But if Vingegaard insisted – rightly – that his time loss at Pla d’Adet was a setback, not a rout, and that there was nonetheless all the pieces to play for, there may be little doubt that Pogačar has additionally obtained essentially the most well timed of boosts to his morale, too.
So the place does the Tour head from right here? After the opening spherical within the Pyrenees, all of the components that have been beforehand in play nonetheless stay a part of the 2024 GC sport: Pogačar continues to have a slim however not decisive edge on Vingegaard within the mountains, the Dane continues to be a particularly laborious nut to crack on the climbs, and Evenepoel is preventing laborious however nonetheless at a slowly rising distance from the 2 prime candidates for victory.
Nobody has forgotten, both, that Evenepoel is, on paper, prone to be one of the best of all three within the remaining Monaco time trial, or that Vingegaard may effectively profit from his lack of racing to be the more energizing within the third week.
But for now, Pogačar continues to carry the reins of energy within the Tour de France, too, and on the proof of stage 14, any shadows of doubts about his situation produced by stage 11 will now have evaporated. The Tour is probably not his to lose, then, – not but, anyway – however with only a third of the race remaining, he’s nonetheless very a lot the person to beat.
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