Tadej Pogacar won stage 20 of the Tour de France at Markstein on Saturday, where barring an accident, Jonas Vingegaard secured his latest win and Thibaut Pinot put on a show.
All that remains for the Dane is to complete Sunday’s traditional parade towards the Champs-Élysées in Paris and win his second consecutive Grande Boucle title by 7 minutes and 29 seconds ahead of Tadej Pogacar, who beat him in the sprint at the Markstein.
After a great stage in the Vosges, the two favorites came to the final race alongside Felix Gall and brothers Adam and Simon Yates, where Pogacar made the difference thanks to his punch and secured an eleventh win in the Grande Boucle that looked like a consolation prize.
Because it is indeed Jonas Vingegaard, third of the stage, who needs to win his second coronation on Sunday barring a very unlikely crash or accident.
Pogacar, winners of 2020 and 2021, will be happy with second place like last year. The Slovenian will also have won two stages and once again won the best young rider’s white jersey.
The penultimate stage was very difficult with six passes and was made even better by Thibaut Pinot’s performance on home soil.
In his last Tour de France, the Franc-Comtois spent the day at the top and gave himself the ultimate pleasure of climbing alone to the top of the Petit Ballon, the day’s penultimate climb, which thousands of fans turned into a Greek football stadium.
Unleashed, Pinot dropped his renegade companions to capsize “the Pinot Curve” where all his friends and supporters had gathered to give him a dream anniversary and memories for life.
The Frenchman was then caught and then passed in the Platzerwasel, the final pass of his Tour de France career, where Pogacar and Vingegaard neutralized each other.
Pogacar waited for the final meters to make the difference and win ahead of Austrian Felix Gall (AG2R-Citroën), who was also the author of an excellent Tour, notably with his victory on the queen stage in Courchevel.