Tadej Pogačar knows a thing or two about the unlimited heartbreak Primož Roglič has endured over the years at the Tour de France. In 2020, after all, Pogačar won his first Tour by divesting his compatriot of the yellow jersey in the most traumatic of circumstances at La Planche des Belles Filles.
Roglič’s subsequent visits to the Tour have been even more accursed. A year later, his rematch with Pogačar was ended before it started by a crash in the opening days. In 2022, another crash forced Roglič to hand leadership of Jumbo-Visma to Jonas Vingegaard.
On Thursday, Roglič’s latest attempt to roll the boulder back up the mountain was repelled by a crash barely a dozen kilometres or so from the finish of stage 12 in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. The Slovenian would reach the finish line 2:27 down. The full extent of his injuries is unknown, but the damage to his overall hopes is already clear. Now 6th overall at 4:42, Roglič will not win the 2024 Tour.
Like most riders in the peloton, Pogačar sensed the crash rather than seeing it firsthand. Amid the every-man-for-himself tumult of a finale like this, there was no time to assess the damage. Only when he had reached the podium area did Pogačar learn from UAE Team Emirates staff that his fellow Slovenian had been the principal victim of the crash.
“I heard something in the back of the bunch, but at that moment, you cannot look around, so you just know that something happened, but not how many guys went down or what exactly happened,” Pogačar said.
"As soon as I crossed the finish line, my guys told me that Primož had crashed and lost time, so I got a real shock. It was really shit news, bad news. I’m really disappointed for him, I’m really sad for him that he crashed and lost time, because he was looking every day better on this Tour.”
Roglič had already suffered a tumble in the finale of Wednesday’s breathless stage to Le Lioran, but he emerged without lasting injury to his person and without undue harm to his overall hopes. As the crash fell within the final 3km, Roglič was awarded the same time as the man he had been riding with, Remco Evenepoel, just 25 seconds down on Pogačar and Vingegaard.
There was no such reprieve on Thursday. Roglič had been the least convincing of the four main contenders to this point, but that didn’t mean he was entirely out of the running. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe management had insisted his training had been tailored to the longer mountains still to come. The point might now be moot.
“He was coming really strongly to the second week, I think, so it really sucks for him,” Pogačar said. “I wish him the best. I hope he didn’t injure himself and that he can continue. Everybody knows he’s a big fighter. I wish him the best for the next stages to recover. Maybe he can win a stage and still come back close on GC. But we will see.”
Vingegaard and the Pyrenees
Pogačar, for his part, rolled home safely in the main peloton to retain the yellow jersey and maintain his buffer of 1:06 over Evenepoel and 1:14 over Vingegaard. If sprint stages earlier in this race had been rather tepid affairs, this run through the heavy, rolling roads of the Lot was rather more heated. “For a sprint stage, today was one of the best for me,” Pogačar said. “It was quite a fast pace, up and down, and I enjoyed the road.”
There was greater interest in what Pogačar had to say about an up and down day of a different kind. When Pogačar attacked on the Puy Mary on Wednesday, it looked as though he was about to take out a permanent lease on his maillot jaune. Instead, his ownership of the jersey seems rather less certain after Vingegaard closed a 35-second gap and then surprisingly beat him to the stage in a two-up sprint.
In Villeneuve-sur-Lot on Thursday evening, Pogačar revealed that he had taken the rare step of watching the stage back on television. Vingegaard’s comeback must surely have been a blow to Pogačar’s morale, but he came away from the viewing with a strikingly upbeat assessment of his performance on stage 11.
“I usually don’t look too much at the TV coverage or anything, but yesterday I had time in the room and I checked it and analysed it,” Pogačar said. “I could see where Jonas saved his legs and where I couldn’t save the legs. That was one of the key moments.
“I had a pretty good day yesterday, but I think Jonas had one of the best days of his career yesterday, I would say – or close to his best, maybe. For me, I was just constantly on the pedals. He had Primož’s help on the downhill after the Puy Mary, it all adds up.”
After another relatively flat run to Pau on Friday afternoon, the Tour enters a new phase at the weekend with a doubleheader in the Pyrenees. The back-to-back summit finishes at Pla d’Adet and Plateau de Beille will reveal much about the direction of travel of this race.
“We will see in the Pyrenees again,” Pogačar said. “It’s going to be a great showdown. But I’m pretty comfortable now in yellow. He needs to attack. We will see.”
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