Tadej Pogacar chose this moment very carefully. He had attacked on the climb up the Col de Joux Plane, but noticed that he couldn’t really distance himself from Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey. The rest of the field was once again far, far away from those two matadors, so Pogacar took it easy. Up on the summit, a good ten kilometers from the finish in Morzine, there were those coveted bonus seconds that the organizers of the tour introduced a few years ago for certain mountain crossings – he really wanted to reach the maximum number.
So Pogacar (UAE) and Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) rode side by side for a while through the narrow line of spectators, and suddenly the Slovenian attacked – but he didn’t get far. Because he had just gained momentum when his attack braked two of the motorcycles on which the cameramen are sitting. They couldn’t get away fast enough, Pogacar couldn’t get past them, so the attack was over. And a few hundred yards away, Vingegaard was the fresher, grabbing eight bonus seconds while Pogacar only had five. Even though the Slovenian caught up two bonus seconds on Vingegaard at the finish line, the bottom line is that he is now ten seconds behind in the overall standings instead of the previous nine.
Pogacar: “I wasted a cartridge there”
A split-second battle ensued between the two opponents, which has never happened before in 120 years of tour history. And it is all the more astonishing that two motorbikes driving too slowly have a say in a few of these golden seconds.
“I wanted to attack one last time before the pass. I wasted a cartridge there. But that’s how it is. We’ll try again,” said Pogacar. And his team boss Mauro Gianetti didn’t want to press charges afterwards either. The rules are clear, the motorcycles have to keep a distance of at least 25 meters, he explained – something like that can happen.
Vingegaard, on the other hand, tried to downplay the importance of this moment. “The bikes were very close,” he said, “but it’s hard to say what would have happened if it had been different.” Jumbo sports director Grischa Niermann noted that it had been very tight in some places in the past few days. He wonders why there aren’t more barriers to avoid such scenes.
The race is interrupted after a mass crash
In any case, the motorcycle stop and the following sprints were the remarkable finale of the most difficult stage of this tour so far. Five mountains were on the program, and already on the approach to the first there was a mass fall, which caused the tour organization to interrupt the race for a short time. A few riders had to retire, including Frenchman Romain Bardet (DSM); others suffered visible injuries, including German Bora team captain Jai Hindley. After the break, Jumbo took command, quickly caught up with a breakaway group and set a high pace – similar to the UAE team the day before.
But when the group around the yellow jersey was reduced to half a dozen riders, it wasn’t Vingegaard who attacked, but Pogacar. There was a few meters gap between the two for more than a few minutes, but eventually the Slovenian gave up and formed his sprint plan, which was then stopped by the bikes. The Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos) used the games played by the two Tour dominators on the last kilometers of the climb and on the descent to Morzine to get close, pass and break away. His reward was not only the stage victory, but also the jump to third place in the overall standings, from which he ousted Bora captain Hindley. However, the two separate only a second.
This Sunday is the third difficult mountain stage in a row. Five mountain classifications are planned, including three in the first category – and including the final test after Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc. There are no bonus seconds on the way this time, but there are at the finish line. Saturday’s bikes can’t influence the outcome this time – both crews, a TV bike and a photographer’s bike, were suspended by the tour organizers for the 15th stage. In addition, they each have to pay a fine of 500 Swiss francs, as the organizer announced.