Now what? Tadej Pogačar threw all that was left to Jonas Vingegaard on stage 17 of the Tour de France, the second of the race in the Pyrenees, but four seconds of bonus were a poor return for his efforts and those of his team exhausted on the road to Peyragudes.
It is true that Pogačar overtook Vingegaard at the top to claim his third stage victory of his Tour, but although he celebrated it with his usual vigor when crossing the line, it was hard to get the feeling that this meant a consolation prize. His path to a third straight overall victory remains as forbidden as before the start of the day. He remains second overall, 2:18 behind Vingegaard.
“Tomorrow is a tougher day, and tomorrow we can try again,” Pogačar insisted after the podium ceremony, but knows he has almost exhausted his offer tomorrow in this Tour. This Thursday’s journey through the Aubisque pass, the Spandelles pass and Hautacam represents his last chance to bend this race at will.
Pogačar will be comforted by the fact that, for the first time in this race, his UAE team was stronger than Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma cohort, and on a day when they were reduced to just four riders. After a sick Marc Soler finished out of time on Tuesday, an injured Rafal Majka retired before the start.
In his absence, a most surprising Mikkel Bjerg and a very determined Brandon McNulty climbed to the mark, destroying the yellow jersey group in the penultimate ascent of the Col de Val Louron-Azet and leaving Vingegaard without companions with almost 25 km to run. .
However, Pogačar’s general problem in this Tour remains insoluble. Vingegaard parked at the wheel of the Slovene once the UAE team began to force, and was still there when McNulty’s inexorable pace had burned everyone else. McNulty led Pogačar and Vingegaard over the summit of Val Louron-Azet and as far as Peyragudes before the two best runners in the race sprinted for the stage victory.
“I think the fact today is that the mood is higher, even though we are four boys,” Pogačar said. “I think that has changed the dynamic now. We are very optimistic and motivated for tomorrow’s stage. Brandon and Mikkel were very good. We can try hard and try to regain time. Today we saw that we were stronger.”
You won’t tell me
Brandon McNulty leads Pogacar and Vingegaard on the climb to Peyragudes (image credit: Getty Images Sport)
In his televised interviews behind the podium and again in the brief conference of the stage winner for the written press, Pogačar repeatedly returned to two topics, namely the strength of his team and his confidence in the third. and more demanding Thursday delivery of the triptych of the Pyrenean stages. .
“It was not only Brandon, but also Mikkel and Hirschi. Mikkel has ridden like a climber today. He set such a good pace on the climbs, it was amazing,” Pogačar said. “I felt so good at that pace, I felt confident and I know he felt safe too. Brandon did an amazing job, he’s been really good today.
“We’ve had a lot of bad luck in the last few days, there’s always been something wrong. I think if everything had been normal, we would have been the strongest team every day, but these things happen in cycling. Tomorrow, we’ll give it a go. all.”
But while Bjerg and McNulty outdid themselves on Wednesday, Pogačar was again unable to put Vingegaard in any real anguish. Before the final sprint, Pogačar’s unique acceleration reached the last meters of the Anzican Hourquette. It was hard to tell if Pogačar was chasing the points of the king of the mountains or trying to get Vingegaard to move before the descent, but he suggested a lack of confidence in his own ability to drop the yellow jersey on the last climb.
This was proved. Vingegaard was as relentless here as he had been in the Alpe d’Huez, Mende, and the Péguère Wall. Even without Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert by his side on the final two climbs, Vingegaard never appeared in danger.
“Vingegaard is strong. We knew that. It’s not news,” said UAE Team Emirates manager Mauro Gianetti, who knows Thursday’s final at Hautacam better than most, given the notorious display of his Saunier team Duval on the rise in 2008 shortly before leaving the race. for the positive test of Riccardo Riccò for EPO.
“You have to be realistic, and it’s a major gap,” Gianetti said of Pogačar’s deficit. “But on the Tour you have to keep believing until the end. We will need a lot of courage and a lot of things.”
Pogačar, for his part, tried to give an optimistic note about his prospects. “I think he’s playing to be very strong and not to break,” he said. “But I think today, if I had Rafal Majka, Marc Soler and George Bennett, as well as Brandon and Mikkel, we might have made a harder run and we could have broken Jonas, but tomorrow is another day to try.”
In fact, Pogačar knows that the hypotheses about his exhausted team are being discussed. The second half of this race has been a direct competition between the two strongest men in the race, and Pogačar has yet to let go of Vingegaard. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. “We will try tomorrow, because the harder the race, the better,” Pogačar said. “Tomorrow we’ll see if he has any weaknesses.”