Tour de France: Pogacar demolishes rivals with devastating stage 12 win in Pyrenees

The Guardian

4 days ago

Tadej Pogacar dominated Jonas Vingegaard on the slopes of Hautacam to take a commanding lead in the Tour de France. After the first summit finish of 2025, the defending champion's next overall victory now appears an inevitability. Pogacar beat his rival to the ski station finish by well over two minutes and now leads the Tour by more than three and half minutes, with nine stages remaining.
Pas de suspense, the French would say, and after the Slovenian's eighth career stage win in the Pyrenees, Vingegaard is scrambling to sustain a meaningful challenge. If Pogacar had been scared when crashing in Toulouse, 24 hours earlier, he showed no ill effects as he dealt a lethal blow to Vingegaard's aspirations under a fierce Pyrenean sun.
'I feel at the best moment of my career,' he said. 'I'm riding in the rainbow jersey, I ride with an amazing team, so it's like a fairytale for me. I think once this fire goes out, I will probably decline in performance but I'd say that now is the peak of my career, and I'll try to hold it for as long as I can.'
He did admit to being anxious prior to the stage however. 'I was nervous at the start, a little bit cranky maybe,' Pogacar said. 'There was the role of 2022, when I lost the Tour here [at Hautacam]. I lost it that day and I guess I was really motivated.'
Burned by Pogacar, Vingegaard is looking over his shoulder at those hot on his heels, including the Scottish climber Oscar Onley, who was fifth at Hautacam and is sustaining his challenge in sixth overall. The Dane has lost time to his Slovenian rival in the long time trial and in the Tour's first summit finish. From here, it appears unlikely that he will be able to mount a challenge for the yellow jersey.
There was more than a little questioning of his Visma-Lease a Bike team's tactics, after Vingegaard arrived at the foot of the final climb alone and surrounded by UAE Emirates riders. Long gone was Matteo Jorgenson, who had started the stage fifth overall but fell back on the Col du Soulor. Nor was there any sign of Simon Yates, winner on Puy de Sancy, but now unable to help his leader.
Pogacar's decisive move came at the foot of the 13km ascent after he was set up by his Ecuadorian teammate Jhonatan Narváez. Initially, Vingegaard kept the defending champion in sight, the gap hovering at a handful of seconds, but as the pursuit wore on, Pogacar cruised clear. Emmanuel Macron briefly joined Christian ­Prudhomme in the race director's car and the French ­president was treated to a ringside seat as Pogacar powered up the slopes.
Further down the mountain, Ben Healy was toiling up the climb, eventually losing the best part of 14 minutes to the Slovenian. In furnace conditions, Healy's overall leadership had wilted on the exposed climb of the Col du Soulor, where Remco Evenepoel also suffered and lost ground.
The morning after Pogacar's crash on the approach to Toulouse, the polemics over the peloton's decision to wait for the Slovenian continued. In the end, however, it was an irrelevance. The show of sportsmanship from Healy and Vingegaard was not lost on Demi Vollering, whose crash while leading the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, after which the peloton did not look back, effectively cost her the race. 'So kind of the bunch not to use this crash of Tadej Pogacar to take time on him,' she posted on Instagram. 'Guess men are a bit more kind.'
It also was a mournful convoy that entered the Pyrenees, the morning after a promising talent had been lost to a high-speed crash, following the death of young Italian Samuele ­Privitera, who was killed on Wednesday while racing in the Giro delle Valle d'Aosta.
According to reports in the Italian media, the 19-year-old crashed as the peloton was riding downhill at 70kph. He is understood to have fallen and hit the iron gate of a house, losing his helmet during the impact and suffering a cardiac arrest. Thursday's second stage of the Giro delle Valle d'Aosta was cancelled.
The Italian was riding for the Hagens Berman Jayco development team, a feeder outfit for Jayco AlUla, currently riding in the Tour. In tribute, there was a minute's applause at the start of stage 12 in Auch. Axel Merckx, son of Eddy and manager of the Hagens Berman team, said that the rider's loss was 'devastating beyond words.'
Friday's stage 13 time trial, from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes is unlikely to change the current narrative, although Evenepoel will be keen to bounce back and exploit any further weakness on the part of Vingegaard. Pogacar however, is expected to increase his overall lead.