At some point the moment came when Tadej Pogacar had to be happy that this individual time trial was over after exactly 22.4 kilometers. Just a few hundred meters more and the Slovenian should have been prepared for a humiliating manoeuvre: that his opponent Jonas Vingegaard, although he had left the track two minutes behind him, would still overtake him on the way to Combloux. But even so, the outcome of that day was a major setback for Pogacar in the fight for overall victory in the Tour de France.
He lost 1:38 minutes to the yellow carrier Vingegaard, before the last difficult stage in the Alps this Wednesday he is now 1:48 minutes behind in the overall standings. Pogacar has already managed to counterattack once during this tour – but now it seems hard to imagine how he will be able to do it again.
“There are still a few difficult days ahead,” says defending champion Vingegaard, he remains cautious
For days, the two rivals had been virtually equal in the battle for seconds, but now the only 22.4 time trial kilometers of this tour should have laid the foundation for the decision. Vingegaard got into the race better from the start. In the first split he was 16 seconds ahead, in the second 31. Then it was time for the most difficult mountain test of the day, the Côte de Domany, and Pogacar changed his bike specifically for this. But that didn’t help him, on the contrary: up at the The mountain classification was already more than a minute behind and many seconds were added to the finish line.
This demonstration by Vingegaard was also so amazing because Pogacar had actually been slightly favored for the time trial. “Maybe it wasn’t my best day, I couldn’t do more today,” said the Slovenian after crossing the finish line – although this time trial stage once again underlined how far Vingegaard and Pogacar are floating above the rest of the field. Third on the day, Vingegaard’s teammate Wout Van Aert, was already almost three minutes behind. And in the overall standings, the third, which is now Pogacar’s teammate Adam Yates, is almost nine minutes behind. However, Vingegaard did not want to see Combloux’ triumph as a preliminary decision. “There are still a few difficult days to come,” he said. “We have to keep fighting.”