When Tadej Pogacar slipped on Wednesday’s Col de la Loze alpine pass behind Jonas Vingegaard, eight kilometers and a world away from the top of the hot, excruciating climb, it was briefly unclear why. Pogacar’s own voice on his team’s radio and television during Stage 17 of the Tour de France immediately provided an explanation for the rare sight of Pogacar being left like a mortal.
“I’m gone,” he told his team. “I’m dead.”
It was an amazing moment on television, a moment that will be repeated on every Tour de France broadcast for decades to come.
Most of Pogacar’s teammates weren’t waiting for him. They didn’t try to help him. What would have been the point? There was no saving Pogacar’s race. The 24-year-old from Slovenia, who normally drives undisturbed with a smile on his face and his tufts of hair peeking out of his helmet, had disappeared.
He was dead. Vingegaard quickly broke away from him and secured his second consecutive Tour de France victory.
The Tour de France ended on Sunday in pomp, aerial views of the Eiffel Tower and eight furious laps of the cobbled streets of central Paris, crowned by a sprint down the Champs-Élysées. Vingegaard, 7min 29s ahead of Pogacar, rode easily in the leader’s yellow jersey and sipped champagne while surrounded by his Jumbo Visma teammates.
As always with a three-week race, there were some notable stories. Jasper Philipsen won four stages and proved that he is the best sprinter in the world. Thibaut Pinot rode his final Tour de France with his signature verve and verve, while Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish ended their illustrious careers not with a bang but with a whimper. The hopefuls failed and breakaways were surprisingly successful.
Pogacar’s teammate Adam Yates finished a distant third, but from start to finish the Tour was all about Pogacar and Vingegaard. The crucial 17th stage and the gap between the two – the winning margin was the widest on the Tour since 2014 – belies what up until then had been one of the most thrilling and thrilling races in years.
After the Tour de France started three weeks ago in Bilbao, Spain, it followed an unusual rhythm. Rather than tackling most of the crucial mountain stages in the final week of racing, there were scattered tough climbs as well as hilly, crisp climbs full of intrigue.
It led to Vingegaard and Pogacar trading blows and heavyweight contenders (although they look more like featherweights on bikes) pitted against each other.
Vingegaard struck first, up the Col de Marie Blanque in the Pyrenees during stage five. Jai Hindley, an outsider who finished seventh, won the stage in a breakaway and wore the yellow jersey for a day. On the steepest part of the climb, Vingegaard pulled away from Pogacar and gained over his rival by over a minute.
Despite Pogacar’s lineage – he won the Tour de France in both 2020 and 2021 – the question has been asked if the Tour is already over. After a racy spring season in which he won two stage races and three of the more prestigious one-day classic races, Pogacar broke his wrist in late April, which had not fully healed when the Tour started. If Pogacar couldn’t stay with Vingegaard early in the race in the Pyrenees, how would he fare in the Alps?
The next day, Pogacar gave his answer. Vingegaard tried to attack twice and left the field behind, but Pogacar got stuck on his wheel. Three kilometers from the end of the stage, as fans ignited flares beside them, Pogacar reversed the script with a surprise counterattack and won the stage by a margin of 24 seconds.
“If it happens like yesterday, we can pack our bags and go home,” Pogacar recalled, thinking during one of Vingegaard’s attacks. “Luckily I had good legs today.”
Pogacar slowly but surely converted Vingegaard’s advantage. On the ninth stage, the famous dormant volcano Puy de Dome, he regained eight seconds. Four stages later, he regained a further eight seconds on the hilltop finish at the Col du Grand Colombier. Twice he launched devastating sprints towards the end of the stages, and twice Vingegaard couldn’t keep up with him.
It was only in hindsight, when the full results were known, that it was possible to look at these phases in a different light. Vingegaard is traditionally stronger than Pogacar on long climbs where he can assert himself, whereas Pogacar is a more explosive driver who pulls away with unstoppable attacks. But despite Pogacar gaining time on Vingegaard over three stages, he couldn’t bury him. Vingegaard lost a few seconds but didn’t let defeat turn into defeat.
Vingegaard, a quiet 26-year-old from Denmark, first showed what would eventually become his dominant form in the race’s only individual time trial, a day before smashing Pogacar on the Marie Blanque. Pogacar started the time trial from penultimate and was over a minute faster than the rest of the field. He was having a good day. But Vingegaard had a great day.
Last to start, Vingegaard pushed himself to the limit, following impeccable lines at incredible speed on the downhill part of the course and showing his climbing skills on the uphill finish despite being on a heavier time trial bike. In the end, he won almost two minutes on Pogacar. He was so fast he thought his gear was broken.
“I think it was one of my best days on the bike ever,” said Vingegaard after the stage. “I mean, at one point I thought my power meter was broken.”
The next day, Pogacar would die, in his own words. For two weeks, Vingegaard’s Jumbo Visma team had set a relentless pace, with the goal not necessarily of helping Vingegaard win stages or gain time, but rather to drain energy from Pogacar and put pressure on his healing wrist, leaving him deeply exhausted by the time the race reached the Alps, Vingegaard’s territory.
On the long, hot stage, Pogacar later said, the food he ate got stuck in his stomach and never made it to his legs. Vingegaard never attacked. He didn’t need it. Pogacar couldn’t accompany him on the Col de la Loze, and as soon as Jumbo-Visma saw that, Vingegaard’s Domestiques increased the pace to ensure Pogacar would fall further behind. He never stabilized; Instead, second by second, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, he seemed to be falling down the mountain.
On Saturday’s 20th and penultimate stage, Pogacar failed to attempt an early attack on Vingegaard at the Col du Platzerwasel pass. It would have made no sense; he would not regain minutes. Instead, they climbed the mountain together and overtook their opponents to the end, where Pogacar defeated Vingegaard in an uphill sprint to win the stage – a final prize, but only a consolation prize.
Vingegaard and Pogacar have won the last four editions of the Tour de France together and neither has yet reached the age at which cyclists usually peak. “It’s been a great fight since Bilbao and hopefully in the future too,” said Vingegaard after his win was secured.
The only shame is that the next installment of this fight won’t be for another year.