Passion and fall of Tadej Pogacar in La Loze, the toughest climb of the Tour de France

Only for the great champions is it a privilege to suffer ultimate defeat, a period of pain and humility for the fans who idolized their great days to discover that they are great even when they look up and in theirs Eyes see only emptiness, thirsty gaze. of helplessness Miguel Indurain, Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault, Lance Armstrong, no, Lance Armstrong never lost, all the greats of the Tour were loved on the day of their defeat, which made their victories greater, and the places of defeat are also centers Pilgrimage route, La Plagne de Indurain 96, Pra Loup de Merckx 75, La Loze de Tadej Pogacar, the hardest climb of the tour, the place of his fall, July 19, 2023.

The fourth tour he’s in and he won the first two and came second in the third, he’s not going to win it. Maybe I won’t be second either. Such was the blow he received from Jonas Vingegaard the day after the Passy a Combloux time trial made him tremble. In 8,500 meters of ascent, the hardest of the 28 of the eternal climb that includes the stations of Courchevel and Méribel up to his airport for the Rothschilds, and another six and a half years of descent and short climb, black asphalt, Wall of Suffering and Infinite Pain, Tadej Pogacar gave up 5:45 minutes (total 7:35 minutes), never in his life for so long, to the Dane, who in Homeric defiance tried to win the stage as well, but was even interrupted by a red car that stopped. In front of us on the narrow road he lacked the strength and the time.

As he frantically climbed the last five kilometers, perhaps another poltergeist on his power meter passed dozens of breakaways that looked like highway poles, that’s how fast the supersonic yellow jersey was again when Pogacar was judged. However, she did not reach the winner, the Austrian Felix Gall, one of the breakaways in the rear-view mirror, joined by all those who feared that the deficit in the general classification would overtake them, nor did the runner-up, Simon Yates and even the Third, Pello Bilbao, overtook him on the Wall of Tears, so exhausted did the Dane arrive and the failure of his excessive attempt makes him even more popular.

Pogacar refreshes exhausted after crossing the finish line.Pool (Getty Images)

To finish off Pogacar, Vingegaard didn’t even have to step on the gas before such an amazing act. The melancholic and incisive fishmonger, his 1.60 m so strong, his mimic lips so lively, did not need to go into killer mode or change plans written back in December by his jumbo’s strategists who the Stage marked as having the crucial “We only followed this strategy decided months ago,” says Vingegaard, whose jumbo jet in Saisies – where Pogacar suffers a silly physical fall that precedes the actual fall -, in the Cormet de Roselend de Ramussen and maintains a hellish pace in the small Contador de 2007, at the fascinating reservoir with turquoise water, 30 degrees, the Alps are loving havens, familiar, both sun and Beaufort cheese with concave edges, like a diabolo, and on the first climb to Courchevel . The detail, the planning, the study do not detract from the grandeur of the moment.

The Ineos from Carlos Rodríguez’s podium help the jumbo. Cyclists without gloves. Watching the kids climb a terrifying colossus of the Alps with bare, sweaty hands on the handlebars of their bikes, 28 kilometers, pedaling for more than an hour, up to 2,304 meters and 30 degrees temperature, they become Bahamontes the seven Evil, old-school cyclist who got a bonus by swapping the best gloves with the best cyclists, Anquetil, Poulidor, kidskin gloves like Fangio’s at the wheel, like Ben Hogan feeling his irons. distinctive sign. master class. Details that current fashion trends do not like: Castroviejo, master of tempo and metronome, and Fraile, the couple who takes care of Carlos Rodríguez and accompanies him with white hands on his extremely steep and complicated path to the podium, which moves away, because, freed from Pogacar’s support, Adam Yates flies and his brother Simon approaches.

“It’s the feeling I’m looking for,” says Tadej Pogacar, the leader of the band of the Unloved. “I prefer to hold the bike like this and touch the handlebars with the skin of my palm, but I know it’s dangerous. When you fall, the scratches on the palm are very painful and very difficult to heal.” In a period of zero-Alpine struggles, before the disaster, when the Tour was about equality and the fight for the bonus, on the Joux plane or at Mont Blanc, Pogacar slipped a bottle of water from his bare hands, and it was as if a spear had been driven into his thirsty side.

Pogacar’s nudity in his solitude alone, accompanied by his Catalan colleague Marc Soler, consists not only of the bareness of his hands, his eyes don’t wear glasses either, and his jersey is open to the navel, on its sides there are two wings and some strips of black tape on his abs, dry lips, absent smile. Bloodstains, the fall, on elbows and knees. An Ecce homo. Beautifully naked for sacrifice, and only the war helm, the unruly lock through the cracks, reminds us of the carefree, carefree, daring Pogacar, falling in love. His stomach hurts, he says. He ate all the carbs he needed to eat, 120 grams per hour, and this winter he trained to be able to absorb them like all cyclists, he hydrated himself, he hydrated himself, but the energy, he explains , has remained in the stomach, has not penetrated into the legs, into the empty muscles. The body burns. The overheated engine without fuel will not continue to run. Before he finishes his striptease by ripping the earphone out of his ear, he talks to the car. Seven words: “I’m going to die, I’m going to die; Adam, on the podium. The history of the Tour of 23 ends on Saturday in the Vosges.

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