Pogacar bursts clear to ship payback in Alps and tighten Tour de France grip | Tour de France 2024 TERMAN WEBSITE

Tour de France 2024

• Slovenian extends GC lead previous 5 minutes on stage 19
• Jonas Vingegaard has no reply to rival on ‘queen stage’

Fri 19 Jul 2024 11.28 EDT

There isn’t any stopping Tadej Pogacar. The Giro d’Italia winner took a definitive and conclusive grip on the yellow jersey, with simply two phases of the 2024 Tour de France remaining, after one other solo win, on stage 19 to Isola 2000.

In one more show of daunting energy, Pogacar, of the UAE Emirates workforce, crushed closest rivals, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma Lease-a-bike and Soudal Fast Step’s Remco Evenepoel, within the excessive altitude passes of the Mercantour Alps. It was the Slovenian’s tenth Grand Tour stage win of 2024.

This was payback for Pogacar for the previous humiliations he has endured by the hands of Vingegaard and his workforce. Dropped within the Alps by Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023, the 25-year-old exacted brutal revenge, rising his lead on the defending champion by 1:42 to simply over 5 minutes.

Simply to rub salt within the wound, Pogacar additionally denied the Dane’s teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, a debut Tour stage win, catching the American rider virtually within reach of the end line.

A lot had been product of the Slovenian’s supposed vulnerability at excessive altitude, however not solely did Pogacar survive the skinny air of the Tour’s highest peak, the Cime de la Bonette, however he additionally cruised additional forward within the total standings and once more emphasised his superiority over all within the peloton.

On what was labelled the “queen stage” of the race, with three ascents throughout 2,000 metres, the defending champion Vingegaard, in a position in earlier years to show Pogacar’s weak point on the very highest climbs, was anticipated to flourish.

In the long run, the reverse situation performed out. It was the Dane who suffered, and Pogacar who profited.

On the ultimate climb to Isola 2000, Vingegaard morphed from champion to limpet, sticking doggedly to Evenepoel’s again wheel, however was unable to aide the pursuit of Pogacar, after the race chief had attacked somewhat underneath 9 kilometres from the end.

For Vingegaard the walnut-whip of the towering Cime de la Bonette, the high-point of the Tour anticipated to offer the platform for a fightback, grew to become a highway to nowhere. What had been anticipated to be a high-altitude “demise zone”, that will take a look at Pogacar’s capabilities with a fiery assault from the defending champion, didn’t materialise.

4 kilometres from the cone-like peak, the group of favourites had dwindled to simply 18 riders, with Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel all current. The largest shock of the day, nevertheless, was that, because the contenders climbed into the skinny air on the 2,802-metre summit of the Bonette, there have been no assaults.

With two of his teammates, Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman, within the six-man breakaway, the scene was set for the Dane to make his transfer, however nothing transpired.

That advance social gathering had been despatched up the highway to pave the way in which for a Vingegaard assault, which he didn’t produce, so on the hoof, his workforce performed a second card, that of a Jorgenson stage win. However exhibiting an insatiable urge for food for fulfillment, the Slovenian race chief thwarted that too.

Even with a summit end and time trial nonetheless to race, the Tour is now gained. However Pogacar has been warned by two former Grand Tour champions, one stripped of his accolades, the opposite together with his public picture nonetheless intact, over displaying vanity.

Within the aftermath of the Slovenian’s assault on the Col du Noyer on Wednesday, Pogacar was reprimanded by none apart from Lance Armstrong.

“It was actually pointless to assault like that,” Armstrong mentioned on his podcast. “This may solely draw extra consideration to Pogacar. If there’s already hypothesis about his efficiency, this definitely doesn’t assist.”

That view was supported by former Giro d’Italia champion, Tom Dumoulin, talking to the Dutch broadcaster NOS.

“Pogacar didn’t want to do that in any respect. He did it solely to unsettle Vingegaard,” Dumoulin mentioned, latching on to different rising options of vanity within the French media.

“There’s positively a component of vanity. The rivalry between Vingegaard and Pogacar has spanned three years, and Pogacar can’t settle for being overwhelmed two years in a row,” Dumoulin mentioned. “Now that he’s again in management and has the energy to problem Vingegaard once more, he’s pondering, ‘Now, I’ll get you again.’”