Jonas Vingegaard won more than one stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday at Lioran, where the two-time defending winner took the psychological upper hand over Tadej Pogacar, whom he dominated in the sprint at the end of an epic day.
Taking all the risks, Pogacar went “all-in” in the sumptuous mountains of Cantal to launch into a solo raid full of panache, 32 kilometers from the finish, with the firm intention of knocking out the Tour.
But he was caught and ultimately overtaken by a resilient Danish rider who never gave up to win a redemptive victory, the most emotional of his career, three months after his serious accident in the Basque Country.
“At one point I wondered if I was going to die,” recalled the two-time defending champion, who suffered a pneumothorax and fractures to his collarbone and ribs in early April, through tears.
“I spent two weeks in hospital, it was so serious. So to be here today, at this level, able to play for the stage victory and ultimately win it, it exceeds all my expectations.”
In the general classification, the Dane only gained one second, through the various bonuses, to return to 1:14 behind the Slovenian and eight seconds behind Remco Evenepoel, third in the stage and still second in the race for the yellow jersey.
But this second is very expensive, and in the Visma-Lease a bike camp, we were on the verge of drinking large beers to celebrate this.
” A legend “
“It’s a form of redemption. I was already very proud to see him able to be at the start of the Tour de France, and now he wins. He’s a legend,” exulted the boss, Richard Plugge.
“He looks like such a nice boy but he is first and foremost a great fighter. To win after being dropped shows the champion he is,” added sporting director Frans Maassen, wiping away a tear at the foot of the bus.
As much as the victory, it was the manner in which the Dane won that left its mark at the end of a supersonic stage, run at breakneck speed. On terrain more conducive to his rival, he showed resilience and above all a composure that we did not know he had, far for example from the images of pure panic during the cobblestone stage in 2022.
When Pogacar placed his attack, 600 m from the Pas du Peyrol, Vingegaard was unable to follow, like no one else. The gap even increased to 40 seconds on the descent where Pogacar took big risks.
But when the slope rose again, in the terrible Perthus pass, the Dane, who had set off alone in pursuit, made up time and even caught up with the Slovenian shortly before the summit.
“To be honest we were afraid that Jonas would not be able to come back. But we stayed calm, we told him to recover on the descent and then do a time trial on the Col du Perthus,” said Frans Maassen.
“Draw”, according to Pogacar
Once the duo that we have been used to for four years now was reconstituted, and while Evenepoel and Roglic were working together in a second group, the two men walked together until the finish.
And this time, it was even Vingegaard who, after having been treated as a small player in recent days, asked for relays from his rival who was becoming increasingly pale.
The Dane hammered the nail in the coffin in a full-throttle sprint where he took the upper hand for the first time in this exercise against a more punchy rider than him. Enough to give him “great confidence” for the future.
Pogacar concluded that it was a “draw” and sent him back to the upcoming stages in the high mountains of the Pyrenees and the Alps. But “Jonas was very strong, we can even say that he is in the form of his life,” he acknowledged, not really answering a question at a press conference about a possible lack of fuel in the final kilometers where he appeared very worn out.
“There will be bigger passes in the Pyrenees and my training has been calibrated for these climbs in the big passes,” said the Slovenian, who said he was “satisfied” after what he called “one of the best stages of all time” on Wednesday.
The day was indeed epic, run at a frantic pace and also marked in the finale by the fall of Primoz Roglic, requalified in the same time as Evenepoel by virtue of the rule freezing times in the last three kilometers.