Remco Evenepoel and Soudal-QuickStep did their utmost to dislodge Jonas Vingegaard from second place overall in the Tour de France on Saturday, but their strategy ran headfirst into the Dane's fullscale bounce back from Friday's defeat – and Evenepoel paid the price.
Dropped by Vingegaard after the second of his late attacks backfired, the Belgian champion finished fourth on the summit finish of Col de la Couillole at 53 seconds on stage winner Tadej Pogačar and is now nearly three minutes back on Vingegaard.
Soudal-QuickStep had tried their best to put Vingegaard into difficulties from the Col de Turini onwards, persisting in their efforts on the second last climb, the Colmiane, and closing in on the breakaway.
Evenepoel's teammate Mikel Landa, in particular, put down a ferocious pace on the Couillole, sacrificing any chance of improving on his fifth place on GC to ensure his leader was in the best place possible to launch a move on the bigger prize of second overall.
However, a first attack by Evenepoel with some 7km to go isolated the Belgian from his key helper Landa, and his second then saw Vingegaard launch a counter-move, taking Pogačar with him and leaving Evenepoel to run a lone chase to the finish.
Evenepoel's assault on second thus failed notably, but on the plus side, his third place overall remains more than secure, with his closest pursuer, Pogačar's teammate João Almeida now nearly nine minutes adrift. His advantage in the best young rider competition too, has now stretched to over 13 minutes as provisional runner-up Carlos Rodríguez lost yet more time on the Couillole.
"Two riders were better than me and they are the winners of the last four Tours. There is no shame in that", Evenepoel, fourth on the line behind Pogačar, Vingegaard and mountain classification leader Richard Carapaz told Sporza.
"We tried to put Vingegaard under pressure and see if his bad day [on stage 19] would continue. That was clearly not the case. We gambled and lost, but I have nothing to regret and I'm pleased we were still able even to try and do this on the last mountain stage of the Tour."
"I went for it twice, but the guys in front of me are two ex-Tour winners with a lot more experience. Their engines are a lot bigger than mine."
Asked what he could do to close the gap between himself and Vingegaard and Pogačar in the future, Evenepoel said "I think I still need a lot of specific training to be able to follow or attack them. There is a lot of work to be done to close that gap."
After his high mountains assault failed to work out, on Sunday Evenepoel will be back on more familiar – and successful – terrain, with a 33.7km time trial as the last stage for the 2024 Tour de France.
Evenepoel confirmed that he will be targeting a second time trial victory in this year´s race, but added " If it doesn't work out, I will be just as happy."
Congratulated for his all-but-certain third place overall and with a second stage win perhaps still to come, too, Evenepoel showed no sign of losing his focus so close to the grand finale by saying "Thanks, but it's not over yet. I still have to stay on the bike on Sunday."
The end, though, is most definitely in sight.
