Tour de France
Pogacar storms into the yellow jersey on the longest day of the Tour
Driving in yellow from now on: Tadej Pogacar. Photo: Thibault Camus/AP/dpa/archive image
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Even before the first mountain finish, Tadej Pogacar took the lead in the Tour de France. The Slovenian won the longest stage and replaced Belgian Wout van Aert.
Tadej Pogacar threw both arms in the air and shouted his joy over the Tour de France yellow jersey.
The defending champion duped the competition on the longest day of the 109th Tour de France with a phenomenal performance on the final climb and took the overall lead. Pogacar thus replaced Belgian Wout van Aert, who had previously been the main protagonist of the 220-kilometer stage with a nearly 140-kilometer escape.
In the overall standings, Pogacar is now four seconds ahead of American Neilson Powless and 31 seconds ahead of last year’s second-placed Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark. The German team Bora-hansgrohe suffered a minor setback when captain Alexander Vlasow fell eight kilometers from the finish and ended up losing five seconds.
Pogacar’s teammate Rafal Majka was satisfied after the first coup: “Today we showed ourselves great as a team. It was an extremely fast stage. It was important that Tadej showed today how strong he is and shot down the stage.”
Van Aert is caught eleven kilometers from the finish
In the first 60 kilometers through Belgium it was not possible to establish a breakaway group. Then leader van Aert tried it himself after 72 kilometers and was able to pull away with the Dane Jakob Fuglsang and the American Quinn Simmons. However, the trio was not left out for more than three and a half minutes. Van Aert’s escape kept the pace consistently high. After three hours of racing, the average was 50.2 km/h.
Despite the work of several teams, it was only eleven kilometers before the finish line that Van Aert was able to catch up. He had long since shaken off his two companions. The performance of the 27-year-old was once again impressive. It was only on Wednesday that he practically single-handedly drove his captain Vingegaard back up the cobblestone stage and ensured that the Dane lost just 13 seconds to dominator Tadej Pogacar.
Favorites are required at the first mountain arrival
After the longest stage, the favorites have to show their form at the first mountain finish on Friday. The seven-kilometer climb to La Super Planche de Belles Filles is extremely tough, especially at the end. There are gradients of 20 and 24 percent, and the road is partly unpaved. The Planche is actually a ski slope, discovered by the tour organizers ten years ago and included in the program for the first time.
Since then, the ascent in the Vosges has been something of the destiny of the tour. Chris Froome (2012), Vincenzo Nibali (2014) and Tadej Pogacar (2020) won there and ended up winning the tour. Fabio Aru (2017) and Dylan Teuns (2019) did not succeed despite their success on the planche.
This year, many teams are expecting a breakaway to pull through. Since the terrain before the climb is not too challenging, it is also assumed that the distances between the classification riders will be small. “It’s more about seconds than minutes,” said Rolf Aldag, head of sports at Bora-hansgrohe. The German team will want to send a driver to the group who will end up supporting captain Alexander Vlasov. However, the other top teams should also have this plan.