Tadej Pogacar took an option on the final victory in the Tour de France after cracking Jonas Vingegaard on Saturday at Pla d’Adet following an improvised tactical masterstroke.
The yellow jersey had announced that he would be content to follow during this first stage in the Pyrenees. It was therefore a bluff because the Slovenian obviously did the complete opposite to dynamite the race with his seventh attack since the start of the Tour.
Accelerating five kilometres from the summit, after having placed Adam Yates, his best lieutenant at UAE, at the front, he crossed the line alone with a 39 second lead over his great Danish rival.
He now has a 1:57 lead over Vingegaard in the general classification, a cushion that is not yet decisive but still very comfortable before an even tougher second day in the Pyrenees on Sunday.
“It’s excellent news, it’s better than expected,” he reacted after crossing the finish line with a cry of rage, muscles tensed.
Belgian Remco Evenepoel crossed the line in third position, 1:10 behind the winner and dropped back to third place overall, 2:22 behind the yellow jersey.
This is the 13the stage victory in the Tour de France for Pogacar, overall winner in 2020 and 2021, who dreams of reclaiming his throne after being overtaken by Vingegaard in the last two years.
“It was improvisation”
And it was with a move that appears in the best cycling manuals that he laid the foundations of his reconquest by dropping his rivals in the steepest percentages of the first arrival at the summit of this 111e editing.
Coming up to Adam Yates seven kilometers from the finish, in the middle of the hubbub of a compact crowd, he told the Briton to attack with, as he explained, a triple objective: “to go for the stage win, to test the opponents to see if they are roasted, and possibly to serve as a support point if I decided to go there myself.”
Yates was a little incredulous at the time. “When he told me to go, I thought, what do you mean? That wasn’t really the plan in the first place. But with Tadej, you never really know what the plan is going to be,” the British climber reported, laughing.
“It was improvisation,” Pogacar confirmed. “I was counting more on a sprint to maybe grab a few bonuses. It’s much better like that.”
“When Adam attacked, Visma had to ride and I was able to benefit from a relay. Adam “killed” himself for me and I thank him for that. The team as a whole was incredible and I dedicate this victory to my teammates,” added the Slovenian who was able to count on a great Nils Politt leading the entire peloton into the Tourmalet.
” A master class ” applauded their sports director Joxean Fernández Matxín.
Yates, “already quite burned out”, could not help his leader for very long.
” Too strong “
But the tactical masterstroke had paid off. Because once he had swallowed up the last escapee, the Irishman Ben Healy who had dropped David Gaudu at the foot of the last climb, Pogacar gradually widened his advantage over Vingegaard.
Unlike the Lioran stage, the Dane was not able to plug the gap this time. On the contrary, the Visma leader lost his footing in the last two kilometers, a sign that his form is perhaps not yet so brilliant after his serious fall at the Tour of the Basque Country at the beginning of April.
“Jonas had good legs today, but Tadej was just the strongest,” Visma sporting director Grischa Niermann commented soberly.
“There are still seven days of racing and we have to try to turn things around,” he added, “but you have to admit that at the moment Pogacar looks incredibly strong.”
After this 13e victory in the Tour, “a dream that we never tire of”, Pogacar is getting closer to his goal of achieving a Giro-Tour double unseen since 1998.
“It’s a big advantage, but you never know,” he said cautiously. “The Tour de France is still long, we’re just starting the high mountain stages.”
But Remco Evenepoel, fixated on his podium goal, summed up the general feeling on Saturday evening at Pla d’Adet when, asked about his loss of time compared to Pogacar, he said: “I don’t care, he’s too strong.”