The Tour de France got its final decision in Saturday’s time trial.
Jonas Vingegaard celebrated the Tour de France victory with his daughter Frida. PDO
The Tour de France’s three-week stint is just short of one 112-kilometer final stage.
However, on Sunday, there will be no more changes in the overall competition, when the crowd solemnly pedals to the Champs-Élysées.
Thus, Saturday’s individual time trial was left as a solution. In the time trial of no less than 40 kilometers, there was a chance for big differences, but this time the Dane pedaling in the yellow shirt Jonas Vingegaard lost only 19 seconds to the team mate who won the stage For Wout Van Aert.
In the joint competition, the Dane’s winning margin eventually increased to three minutes and 34 seconds. Second was last year’s number one Tadej Pogačar.
However, the day was very close to ending in disaster when Vingegaardin rode too hard on the downhill side of the corner towards the end of the stage. Only strong braking kept the Dane still on the asphalt side, when the alternative was crashing into a rock.
– It is difficult to describe this in words. This is the biggest victory in cycling, a clearly moved Vingegaard said in an interview with Eurosport.
– I’m just extremely happy and proud, he continued, wiping away his tears at the same time.
Two years ago, the victory of the Tour was flagged by the Jumbo-Visma colleague Primož Rogličin out of control just second in the last day’s time trial.
Now the Dutch team wanted to make sure that the mistake would not be repeated.
– We didn’t want it to happen again. The whole team was incredibly good. These guys are really my brothers.
The story continues after the picture.
The Jumbo-Visma team did not want the loss of two years ago to repeat itself. PDO
Vingegaard took his wife and daughter with him to the goal area. He was already second in the overall competition last year.
– I already believed last year that I could do this and now it happened.