Tadej Pogacar takes Tour de France lead with time-trial statement
I had written a story about the first four days of the Tour de France explaining that while Pogacar was very much on form, the performance of his principal rival, Jonas Vingegaard, had been highly encouraging. A two-times Tour winner, Vingegaard had raced more aggressively than at any time in the past, so strong that he was able to match Pogacar on the shorter climbs of northern France that don't suit him.
The thrust of the argument was that Vingegaard was ready for another joust with his great Tour rival. Pogacar, of course, remained the favourite but it didn't seem to be pie-in-the-sky talk to suggest this could be their closest battle. Between them, they have dominated the past four Tours; two to Pogacar, two to Vingegaard, and they have finished first and second on more stages than any other two riders in history.
After Rouen came the 33-kilometre individual time-trial at Caen. Remembering what Vingegaard had done to Pogacar in a 22.4km race against the clock in the 2023 Tour and more recently at the Critérium du Dauphine, I predicted he would make up his eight-second deficit on Pogacar and take the Yellow Jersey. At the time it seemed plausible.
After filing the story, a good friend called. He is a sports scientist who has worked for a long time in cycling and has spent his working life analysing performance. He had watched the first four days of the race and thought it was obvious how the Tour was going to play out.
'How exactly?' I asked.
'Tadej will win by five to seven minutes. He will do a very good time-trial in Caen. I'm not sure Jonas can on such a flat course. I can also see Tadej winning the sixth stage to Vire Normandie and the seventh to Mûr de Bretagne. In my opinion Jonas has no chance of beating Tadej in theTour.'
This wasn't what I wanted to hear. He explained. 'The stages to Boulogne and then Rouen were like one-day classics and Jonas was going full gas with six kilos less than Tadej (Vingegaard's weight is 60kg, Pogacar's 66kg). For him this was really taxing on his body and I am sure Jonas is going to pay for it. I would go further and say João Almeida [Pogacar's main lieutenant at UAE Team Emirates] will finish second in the Tour.'
We have had these conversations many times. He is a scientist, a numbers man. I am a words man. Most times, the numbers man is right. And sometimes you write a piece that an hour later you wish you could take back.
As soon as my friend made the point about Vingegaard paying for his efforts, little things fell into place. At the finishes in Boulogne and then Rouen, where he'd ridden so hard, it was clear from Vingegaard's body language that he'd gone deep into himself. Pogacar's face didn't even suggest he'd been in a race. Others lie on the road in exhaustion after their efforts, he jumps on his warm-down bike.
Then there was Pogacar's mood. Asked about the likelihood of losing time to Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel in the race against the clock, he talked about it like it was his best friend's stag do. Couldn't wait. When on the night before the team suggested he go round to the hotel of the race organiser to get fitted up for his polka-dot skinsuit (as King of the Mountains), he shrugged his shoulders and said they could use the measurements he gave them for last year's time-trial at Nice.
There are aspects to his character that we're still discovering. His performance in a time-trial at last month's Dauphine was seriously disappointing as he lost more time than expected to both Evenepoel and Vingegaard. Since then he has often spoken of being complacent that day and getting his pace wrong through the first half of the test. All down to him.
Publicly he never mentioned serious technical issues with his bike but everyone in the team knew the bike was a big problem. It felt unstable. He let those responsible know that he wasn't happy but, in public, toys are never thrown from the pram.
On the 33km loop at Caen, he was ready and the bike was right. He was right. His second-place finish and 16-second loss to the specialist Evenepoel was, in reality, a victory. With it came the Yellow Jersey and a 65sec gain on Vingegaard, who finished a lowly 13th, 1min 21sec down on Evenepoel.
'No, I don't have an explanation,' Grischa Niermann, directeur sportif at Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike team, said. 'Before the TT, everything was good, so there were no problems. In the TT he was not able to talk to me; I'm only able to talk to him, but we already heard after a few kilometres that he was eight seconds down on Remco, and he just lost more time as it progressed. I haven't spoken to him yet, but of course we hoped for more.'
Vingegaard himself was matter-of-fact in his assessment. 'My legs were not feeling so good, so the result is matching my legs. I was fighting my bike and my legs today. Luckily, the Tour is long and I still believe in myself, in our plan, and still believe that we can win.'
There were notable performances from the young French rider Kévin Vauquelin, who finished fifth and moved up to third place overall, behind Pogacar and Evenepoel. Vauquelin, 24, is from the town of Bayeux in Normandy. It is from here that the sixth stage will begin, traversing the roads that have been and still are Vauquelin's training ground. When he finished second in the Tour de Suisse last month, he apologised to his team-mates for not winning. He, too, has got something about him.
Scotland's Oscar Onley was always going to find this pancake-flat time-trial difficult because he is a climber but he did well, finishing 2min 2sec down in 23rd place. He drops to 11th overall but a place in the top ten remains within reach. That would a terrific achievement. For another 22-year-old Briton, Joe Blackmore, the time-trial proved difficult as he lost 4min 34sec and dropped to 27th overall.
That may not seem much but Geraint Thomas, winner in 2018 and riding his 14th Tour, now sits in 44th place and so the performances of Onley and Blackmore are admirable. They will both gain enormously from the experience.
If they are to one day challenge Pogacar, they will have to progress. Victory at Caen went to Evenepoel but the day belonged to the reigning Tour and world champion. Evenepoel delivered a perfect time-trial but only a handful of seconds faster than Pogacar. In the mountains Evenepoel will have days where he will be left behind by Pogacar. If offered second place right now, he might well take it.
Five days into the race, Pogacar has the Yellow, Green and Polka Dot jerseys. Quite the collection. He wasn't attaching much significance to it. 'The most important is Yellow, and the most important thing is to have it on the Champs-Élysées,' he said. 'Now, it's not important.'
The difficulty for his rivals is actually seeing themselves as rivals.
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