Nothing stops Tadej Pogacar. The Giro d’Italia champion has decisively taken the yellow jersey with just two stages to go in the Tour de France after a solo win on stage 19 to Isola 2000.
It was too much for defending champion Jonas Vingaard, who eventually conceded defeat after crossing the finish line at the high-altitude ski station. “Now it’s over,” the Dane said.
In another display of sheer power, UAE Team Emirates’ Pogacar crushed his closest rivals Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel on the high passes of the Mercantour mountains. It was the Slovenian’s 10th Grand Tour stage win in 2024.
This was payback for Pogacar, for the humiliation he had endured at the hands of Vingaard and his team. Having dropped him in the Alps in 2022 and 2023, the 25-year-old had exacted his revenge in a brutal way, increasing his lead over his rival to just over five minutes with two days to go.
To make matters worse, Pogacar denied the Danish Visma Les A Bike team-mate Mathieu Jorgenson a first stage win at the Tour de France, catching the American just one step from the finish line.
There has been much talk about Pogacar’s supposed weaknesses at high altitude, but the 2020 and 2021 Tour de France champion not only managed to survive in the thin air of the race’s highest peak, the Cime de la Bonnet, but also moved forward in the overall standings and once again confirmed his superiority over the rest of the riders.
On the final climb to Isola 2000, Vingaard went from hero to underdog, clinging to Evenepoel’s rear wheel, but he was unable to help chase Pogacar, after the race leader attacked nine kilometres from the finish line.
“Maybe something will happen now. I think it’s normal with only a month and a half of preparation. I said from the beginning that it would be crazy to be able to compete with only a month and a half of preparation,” said Vingaard, whose Tour de France preparations were disrupted by a serious accident that put him in hospital in April, after the stage. [of preparation]”But I did it for two and a half weeks.”
For Vingarde, the walnut whip of the towering 2,802-metre Sime de la Bonnet, the highest point of the Tour and which was expected to provide a platform for a response, turned out to be a road to nowhere. What was expected to be a high-altitude “death zone” and a platform to test Pogacar’s mettle, with a fiery attack from the reigning champion, did not materialise.
With two of his teammates, Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman, in the six-man lineup, the scene was set for the Dane to make his move, but nothing happened. Instead, his legs just weren’t strong enough.
At the start of the race, his team played a second card, winning the Jorgenson stage. But by showing his desire to succeed, Pogacar also foiled that plan. “I didn’t have a good day. I had to change my mindset from trying to win,” Vingaard told the media after the stage.
Although the race is still on, the Tour has been won. But Pogacar has been warned by two former Grand Tour champions, one of whom was stripped of his prizes, the other whose public image remains intact, for displaying arrogance.
Following the Slovenian’s surprise attack on the Col du Noir on Wednesday, Pogacar was reprimanded by Lance Armstrong.
“It really wasn’t necessary to attack like that. It’s only going to draw more attention to Pogacar. If there’s already speculation about his performance, it certainly won’t help,” Armstrong said on his podcast.
This view was supported by former Giro d’Italia champion Tom Dumoulin, speaking to Dutch broadcaster NOS.
“Pogacar didn’t need to do this at all. He just did it to annoy Vingard,” Dumoulin said, taking issue with other increasingly inflammatory hints of arrogance in the French media.
“There’s definitely an element of arrogance. The rivalry between Vingard and Pogacar has been going on for three years, and Pogacar can’t accept defeat for two years in a row. Now that he’s regained control and has the strength to challenge Vingard again, he’s thinking, ‘Now, I’ll take you back to me.’”
