An utterly dominant Tadej Pogacar won the final mountain stage to the Col de la Couillole in the Alpes Maritimes, and edged ever closer to completing a rare double of the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same season.
Once again, the 25-year-old leader of UAE Emirates found himself riding to the finish line with the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard, and once again he proved the stronger, the Dane simply unable to respond to Pogacar’s attack.
The Slovenian is about to become the eighth rider, but the first in the 21st century, to win the Giro and Tour in the same season. Given the quality of the opposition, the difficulty of both Grand Tours, the intensity of modern road racing and that he will also be competing in the Olympic Games, it is an extraordinary achievement.
“If you told me this before the Tour, I would not have believed you,” Pogacar said. “It’s out of this world.”
The Tour’s final summit finish came after three earlier climbs in the Nice hinterlands, the Braus, Turini and La Colmiane, on another afternoon of fierce temperatures on the Cote d’Azur.
The breakaway was given its head and once again fractured on the final ascent, with only the perennial escape artist Richard Carapaz and Enric Mas remaining at the head of the race.
But with Vingegaard having conclusively ceded overall victory to Pogacar after Friday’s summit finish to Isola 2000, the main impetus to the final climb lay with the third-placed Remco Evenepoel.
Sensing Vingegaard’s supposed vulnerability, the 24-year-old Belgian first attacked 7km from the finish, but was quickly followed by both the Dane and Pogacar.
“The race exploded,” Pogacar said. “Remco tried everything to drop Jonas, there were many attacks and it was super hard to follow.”
Evenepoel’s next attack, 5km from the finish, blew up in his face as the defending champion counterattacked and opened a gap, with Pogacar sitting in his wake.
“The last time Remco attacked, Jonas did a counterattack,” but then added that he “didn’t want to work” with the Dane. “I wanted to recover on his wheel and maybe let Mas and Carapaz ride for the victory, but I think Jonas wanted to gain more time on Remco, just to be sure.”
Their acceleration quickly closed the gap to long-term breakaways, Mas and Carapaz, and as the Spaniard and Ecuadorian slipped back, the pair entered the final kilometre with the stage victory in play. The outcome however, of Pogacar’s arms raised in the early evening sunlight, was strikingly familiar.
“You don’t give away stages,” he said when it was suggested he was being greedy. “We gave the breakaway enough time. They had big chances, they had chances lots of times. You’re also paid to win.”
After leading Pogacar into the final 250m, Vingegaard had few complaints. “Everyone has their tactics,” he said. “I don’t judge anyone on their tactics. I’d probably do the same in his situation.
“He didn’t need to ride, he already has five minutes on me. It’s just how it is. I’m just happy with how I rode, how I recovered from yesterday. I felt really bad, completely empty, so to bounce back like this is really nice.”
With only the final 33.7km time trial, from Monaco to Nice, remaining, the destination of the yellow jersey is not in doubt. Barring a catastrophe for Vingegaard, the final podium is also decided. In competitive terms, however, it has been a whitewash on Pogacar’s part, certainly since he took back-to-back stage wins in the Pyrenees.
He has dominated the Tour just as much as he did the Giro, if not more so. In the Giro, 11 riders finished within half an hour of his winning time, he won six stages and also took the King of the Mountains classification. But neither Vingegaard nor Evenepoel, past Grand Tour winners, competed in the Giro.
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With one day remaining, only 10 are within 30 minutes of the leader. Pogacar has won five stages, as well as setting record-breaking times on the climbs of the Galibier, Pla d’Adet, Plateau de Beille and Isola 2000. Despite the presence of cycling’s much-hyped Big Four – Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic – at the start in Florence, Pogacar’s appetite has been insatiable.
This has been the most global Tour de France. The overall winner is Slovenian, the winner of the points jersey is Eritrean, the King of the Mountains from Ecuador. Further change is expected at the Tour soon, with Mark Cavendish’s Astana Qazaqstan team announcing a significant increase in sponsorship from China.
Oddly, that growing sense of globalisation has also included the French flourishing, with the home nation taking the overall lead on the opening day and winning three stages, as well as coming close on other occasions.
Ineos Grenadiers, meanwhile, are engaged in a battle to keep their team leader, Carlos Rodríguez, inside the Tour’s top six after the Spaniard was leapfrogged by Pogacar’s teammate Adam Yates by a second.
The probable outcome of Sunday’s time trial suggests that on recent form, Yates, the highest placed British rider, may not have done enough to hang on to sixth. He lost 20 seconds to Rodríguez in the Tour’s first time trial in Gevrey-Chambertin, which was won by Evenepoel.
• This article was amended on 22 July 2024. Adam Yates lost 20 seconds to Carlos Rodríguez in Gevrey-Chambertin, not “2min 30sec” as an earlier version said.
