Jonas Vingegaard wears the yellow jersey into the second rest day of the 110th Tour de France. In the Alps, the Dane parried Tadej Pogacar’s attacks.
At the foot of the gigantic Mont Blanc, Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey smiled at the low sun and threw his bouquet of flowers into the audience with a flourish. Again, the defending champion of the Tour de France had parried the attack of his challenger Tadej Pogacar, again he was a small step closer to the renewed overall victory.
“These duels that we fight are getting better and better every day,” said Vingegaard. “I’m quite satisfied.”
Calm, alert and with tactical maturity, the Dane countered two-time Tour champion Pogacar on the final climb to Saint-Gervais. The captain of the Jumbo-Visma team has the advantage before the final week – but it is negligible. A preliminary decision in the thriller of seconds for the overall victory in Paris has still not been made.
Only ten seconds separate Vingegaard and Pogacar. The outcome of the epic duel, which has been causing suspense and drama since the Pyrenees, is completely open. “Of course I would like to have a lead, but it’s not that easy with an opponent like Jonas,” said Pogacar, who expects a lot from the only individual time trial on the tour on Tuesday: “I think there will be bigger gaps there.” Vingegaard promised to “get it all out”.
Hindley falls behind
The protagonists of the eventful 110th Tour of France did the same with the only mountain finish in the Alps. Again they acted as equals. On Sunday, the rivals crossed the finish line side by side.
Pogacar and Vingegaard had been stalking each other for a long time on the final climb. One kilometer from the finish, the Slovenian, Tour winner of 2020 and 2021, took the initiative, but like last time he couldn’t shake Vingegaard.
In the fight for the third place on the podium, the top German team Bora-hansgrohe falls behind with its Australian captain Jai Hindley. Hindley lost third place overall to 22-year-old Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), who won in Morzine on Saturday. The gap grew to 1:17 minutes on Sunday.
Buchmann falls
The day’s winner after 179 km and almost 4500 meters in altitude in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc came from a breakaway group. The Dutchman Wout Poels, team colleague of the German professional cyclists Phil Bauhaus and Nikias Arndt at Bahrain Victorious, rode jubilantly as a soloist across the finish line. At the beginning of the last climb, Poels hung behind Belgian Wout van Aert as the last opponent.
Nils Politt (Bora-hansgrohe) from Cologne was part of the breakaway group for a while, but the all-rounder was at a disadvantage on steep terrain. His teammate Emanuel Buchmann fell in the final phase in a descent. However, the German champion was able to continue the race.
Spectators trigger mass fall
One day after two support motorcycles had influenced the race on the first stage in the Alps, the 15th stage was not free from external disruptive factors either. Vingegaard’s noble helper Sepp Kuss got caught on the arm of a careless spectator at high speed, fell and also cleared his teammate Nathan van Hooydonck. Behind them, numerous other drivers fell in the mass crash.
On Saturday, motorcycles caused trouble on the last ramp to the Col de Joux Plane. A potentially decisive attack by Pogacar fizzled out after just a few meters because the press team reacted too late to the start. Pogacar braked, Vingegaard caught up – and shortly afterwards secured eight bonus seconds at the summit. “I fired a cartridge there… it is what it is,” Pogacar said.