Latest news with #Loudenvielle
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Sport
- Wall Street Journal
The Grizzled Mechanic Who Saved Pogacar's Tour de France
Loudenvielle, France Before Tadej Pogacar could win the Tour de France's yellow jersey, he first had to be saved by a man in blue overalls.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Tour de France results, standings: Race outlook after Thymen Arensman wins Stage 14
Defending Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar did not win Stage 14 on July 19's race, but was still able to extend his lead vs. the field. Pogačar finished 1 minute and 8 seconds behind Thymen Arensman for his runner-up position. That was, however, good enough to extend his lead over Jonas Vingegaard to 4 minutes and 13 seconds through the 14 stages. The defending Tour de France champion is seeking his fourth title in the biggest race in cycling. Arensman finished with a best-of-the-day time of 4 hours, 53 minutes, 35 seconds to win the 37-kilometer (23-mile) race, considered one of the hardest in the tour. For Arensman, it was his second Grand Tour stage win, with the other coming in the 2022 Spanish Vuelta. Remco Evenepoel retired from the race early in Stage 14, despite leading as the best young rider and placing third in the overall standings. Here's a look at the complete stage 14 results and 2025 Tour de France standings after Saturday, July 19, as well as what's coming up for cycling's biggest race: 2025 TOUR DE FRANCE: When does Tour de France end? Full schedule for 2025 Tour de France Tour de France Stage 14 results Here are the final results of the 10.9-kilometer Stage 13 individual time-trial from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes in the French Pyrenees at the 2025 Tour de France on Friday, July 18 (with position, rider, team, time): Thymen Arensman, INEOS GRENADIERS: 4 hours, 53 minutes, 35 seconds Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates XRG, 4 fours, 54 minutes, 43 seconds Jonas Vingegaard, Team Visma/Lease a Bike, 4 hours, 54 minutes, 47 seconds Felix Gall, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team, 4:54.54 Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, 4:55 Oscar Onley, Team Picnic Postnl, 4:55.44 Ben Healy, EF EDUCATION - EASYPOST: 4:56.21 Primoz Roglic, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, 4:56.21 Tobias Johannessen, UNO-X MOBILITY: 4:56.34 Kevin Vauquelin, ARKEA-B&B HOTELS: 4:56.43 Tour de France 2025 standings Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia: 50 hours, 40 minutes, 28 seconds Jonas Vingegaard, Denmark: 50:44.51 (4 minutes, 13 seconds behind) Florian Lipowitz, Germany: 50:48.21 (7 minutes, 53 seconds) Oscar Onley, Great Britain: 50:49.46 (9 minutes, 18 seconds) Kevin Vauquelin, France: 50:50.49 (10 minutes, 21 seconds) Primoz Roglic, Slovenia: 50:51.02 (10 minutes, 34 seconds) Felix Gall, Austria: 50:52.28 (12 minutes) Tobias Johannessen, Norway: 50:53.01 (12 minutes, 33 seconds) Ben Haley, Ireland: 50:59.09 (18 minutes, 41 seconds) Carlos Rodriguez, Spain: 51:03.25 (22 minutes, 57 seconds) 2025 Tour de France jersey leaders Yellow (overall race leader): Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia Green (points): Jonathan Milan, Italy Polka dot (mountains): Lenny Martinez, France White (young rider): Florian Lipowitz, Germany 2025 Tour de France next stage Stage 15 of the 2025 Tour de France is a 160.3-kilometer hilly course from Muret to Carcassonne on Sunday, July 20. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arensman wins Tour de France Stage 14 race; Pogačar extends lead
Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Times
I'm not untouchable, insists peerless Tadej Pogacar as he builds 4min lead
Here's the part you may find hard to believe. Each day that he wins a stage or wears the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar is obliged to sit in a mobile studio by the finish and do a video conference with journalists at the centre de presse. This is after he has warmed down, done TV interviews, attended to podium duties and gone to anti-doping. Who would blame him for being a little cranky? He never is. On Friday he won the 13th stage, a 10.9km mountain time-trial from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes. He rode up a killer of a climb at an average speed of 28km/h . His great rival, Jonas Vingegaard, had one of his better days at the Tour de France but was beaten by 36sec. Vingegaard was far from despondent. 'I knew it was not my normal level [Hautacam, on Thursday]. It's not like I lost belief in myself, I still believe in myself. I think today I came back to normal. So I have to keep on trying.' Every other contender lost significant time. Poor Remco Evenepoel was 2min 39sec down and though he remains third overall, he now trails Pogacar by 7:24. Of those who lost time, Oscar Onley gained the most. In his second Tour de France, the 22-year-old has delivered a coming-of-age performance. At every difficult moment he is where he should be in the race and on the lone ride to Peyragudes, he did well. He finished 2:06 down on Pogacar but recorded the seventh-fastest time of the day and that lifted him from seventh to fifth overall. A place in the top five is not beyond his capabilities. Where does this latest victory leave Pogacar? Leading the race by 4:07 and heading for another post-race visit to the mobile studio. The second question asks if he's afraid of making enemies in the peloton and might consider backing off now so others might win stages? 'I am not here to make enemies,' he said, softly. 'It's the Tour de France, you can't just back off if there's an opportunity for a stage win. 'On the Tour you never know when is your last day. I will say this honestly: the team pays you not to give away things. There's a big team behind you that supports you and they work every day of their career so you can come to the Tour and win. If I singlehandedly decided to give away every opportunity that we can grab, my team would not be happy. 'If there's an opportunity, you go for it. When I finish my career, I will probably not speak with 99 per cent of the peloton, honestly. I will focus on my close friends and my family when I finish my career.' This was the week that Scottie Scheffler initiated a thoughtful debate around the ephemeral essence of success in sport. 'It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes,' Scheffler said. 'It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling.' This was no throwaway observation from the world's best golfer but an insight into how difficult it is for him to find meaning in what he does. 'There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life, and you get there, you get to No1 in the world, and they're like, 'What's the point?' I really do believe that, because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?' Pogacar goes to the Tour of Flanders, a brutal one-day classic over cobbled climbs, and is expected to win. He does. Barely has he finished his warm-down and he's being asked about three upcoming one-day Classics: Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. At these races it will only be a story if he doesn't win. At Roubaix he is second. The other two, he wins. He won his first Tour at 21. A kid in the foothills of his career but with enough talent to overturn a 57sec deficit on the penultimate day and win a race no one envisaged him winning. Since then he's been expected to win every Tour de France he's ridden. He won two from four and was as gracious in defeat as he was modest in victory. His career was changed, enriched you could say, by the losses. After this victory at Peyragudes, his 21st stage win, I ask if, like Scheffler, he wonders about the point of it all? 'I don't know. It is a good question. It is hard to answer. I started cycling when I was eight, nine years old, and I created my life around the bike. I found my closest friends on the bike. I found my girlfriend, now fiancée, through the bike. 'The point is you need to enjoy the moment. The little things, not just the victories. Like he said, when you win, people think about the next win or [say] that you're winning too much. You need to enjoy what you are making the sacrifices for. I think living in the moment is the right answer to this question [of what's the point] and not care too much about what everyone else thinks.' Pogacar is then asked if he is untouchable. What is he supposed to say? He takes the question calmly. 'If you'd seen me at the 2022 Tour, or 2023, I had bad moments. I cracked. Those years I was second, had stage wins but had those bad moments and I can still have them this year. I wouldn't say I'm untouchable. I will try to be, but there can come a bad day.' Some wonder how he can be so good? Not me. There's a story told by the UAE sports director Andrej Hauptman of going to watch an 11-year-old Pogacar ride a circuit race in Slovenia with the kid's coach at the time. Hauptman wasn't impressed as the slightly built and skinny Pogacar was off the back of the peloton, furiously trying to catch up. He asked the coach if it was sensible to have him race against older and stronger boys. 'Andrej, he's not off the back. He's attacked from the start and now he's going to lap everyone.' Another memory is of the Saturday afternoon at La Planche des Belles Filles after his astonishing time-trial victory that gave him his first Tour de France victory. At the media conference he said he would like to thank his parents. 'F the genetics.' He said it with a smile but he meant it. He is far from stupid. In 2019, his first season with UAE, they took him to the United States for training and to race the Tour of California, which he won. While in the US, all the UAE riders underwent testing under the supervision of Iñigo San Millán, who at that time was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. San Millán was particularly interested in discovering the rates at which riders cleared lactate from their fast-twitch muscle fibres. 'One of the measurements I took is for lactate to see how quickly the lactate levels recover after a hard effort,' San Millán has said. 'With Pogacar, I noticed that his lactate recovery capacity was huge. His levels would return to normal after two minutes, while some riders took 20 minutes. That's a great advantage when you're attacking a climb as you can keep on attacking. It's been shown that world-class athletes produce more because they have a higher glycolytic capacity and can also clear it more proficiently. Well, Pogacar has one of the greatest glycolytic capacities I've ever seen.' Tadej definitely wasn't joking when he thanked his folks.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Race leader Tadej Pogacar makes history with fourth stage win of this Tour de France
Tadej Pogacar became the youngest rider to reach 21 Tour de France stage wins as he stretched his advantage in the yellow jersey to more than four minutes in Friday's mountain time trial to Peyragudes. Pogacar completed the 10.9km route from Loudenvielle - 8km of which was made up of the first category climb to the mountain top airstrip - in a time of 23 minutes flat, putting another 36 seconds into his closest rival Jonas Vingegaard as others fell even further back. It was a fourth stage win of this year's Tour for the 26-year-old, who is now 14 shy of Mark Cavendish 's all-time record. A day after he underlined his dominance so far with a solo win on the Hautacam, Pogacar extended his lead over Vingegaard to four minutes and seven seconds, and barring misfortune, it is hard to see how anyone can stop him winning a fourth title. 'I'm super happy,' said Pogacar. 'This time trial was quite a big question mark already in December for me. I wanted everything to be perfect and the team delivered in the final moments for everything to be on top. 'I had an easy day in the morning, a nice preparation and then I was really targeting to go from the start to the finish all out and try to smash it as much as possible on the pedals. 'I almost blew up in the end but I saw the time [on the finish line screens] and it gave me an extra push because I knew I was going to win.' After losing more than two minutes to Pogacar on Thursday, Vingegaard was much happier after catching a struggling Remco Evenepoel, his two-minute man, 50 metres from the line on the 15 per cent gradients at the top of the runway. 'Of course yesterday was really disappointing,' the two-time Tour winner, who cracked when Pogacar accelerated on the lower slopes of Hautacam, said. 'I hoped for more but in the end I was just a bit empty. 'Yesterday was probably one of my worst performances but today was one of my best so it's nice to come back like this.' Both Vingegaard and Evenepoel, the world time trial champion, were among a handful of riders that opted to go with adapted time trial bikes, while Pogacar chose a road bike and made the decision pay. Having shipped more than two minutes to both Pogacar and Vingegaard, Evenepoel barely hung on to third place overall and the best young rider's white jersey, just six seconds ahead of Florian Lipowitz. Lipowitz and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Primoz Roglic both put in brilliant performances, Slovenian Roglic finishing third on the stage at 1'20' behind Pogacar. The 22-year-old Scot Oscar Onley is also definitely part of the fight for the podium, up to fifth overall, eight minutes off yellow but only 47 seconds behind Evenepoel. 'Looking at the times now it looks like we were all suffering a little bit but I did what I could," Onley said. 'With the steep runway at the end, I just had to hold back a little bit but it was difficult with the rest of the climb just an uncomfortable gradient.' It was a second consecutive bad day for Evenepoel, who said he had 'no idea' why he has struggled. 'With a normal feeling I should end up in the top three but I was really bad,' he said.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Tour de France stage 13: Back-to-back stage wins for Pogacar, some vintage Roglic – and what's wrong with Remco?
Tadej Pogacar strengthened his grip on the 2025 Tour de France on Friday, winning the race's mountain time trial from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes and extending his overall race lead to more than four minutes. There hadn't been a pure mountain time trial like this in the Tour since Lance Armstrong scorched up Alpe d'Huez in 2004, one minute and one second ahead of his great rival, and now friend, Jan Ullrich. Advertisement Australia's Luke Plapp was the best of the early riders by some distance, with his time standing until Primoz Roglic came across the line several hours later. Roglic's performance was a welcome return to form, and with his teammate Florian Lipowitz finishing fourth on the stage, it was a super day for Red Bull — if not for Remco Evenepoel, the rider they are tipped to sign for next season. The Belgian world time trial champion laboured up the climb and was caught by Jonas Vingegaard, who had started two minutes behind him. It was a show of strength from Vingegaard after the disappointment of yesterday, but even he could do nothing to prevent Pogacar's fourth stage win of the race, with surely more to come. 💛 @TamauPogi takes off again on the Peyragudes Altiport! Here are the final meters of the Yellow Jersey's triumphant ascent. 💛 @TamauPogi s'envole à nouveau sur l'Altiport de Peyragudes ! Voici les derniers mètres de l'ascension triomphale du @MaillotjauneLCL. #TDF2025 — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 18, 2025 Jacob Whitehead and Duncan Alexander analyse the stage. Find all of The Athletic's Tour de France coverage here. Or follow Global Sports on The Athletic app via the Discover tab. There are fewer simpler disciplines in road cycling than a mountain time trial. Gather everyone at the foot of a climb and see who can reach the top in the fastest time. That Tadej Pogacar makes it look easier than any other rider should hardly be a surprise either. As some of his nominal rivals for the top 10 opted for Frankenstein setups, mixing time trial frames with road wheels, or chucking time trial tech onto their road bikes, Pogacar kept it uncomplicated. There he was, on his usual bike (sans paint), clad in a familiar yellow skinsuit, putting everyone else to the sword. Plus ça change. Advertisement 'This was the biggest decision to make,' Pogacar explained after the stage. 'Obviously we race on road bikes most of year, like 99 per cent of the time, so we did some calculations and if you cannot push as much (power) on the TT bike as on the road bike then it's about the same time, so I decided to be more comfortable and use the same bike I had for the last 12 stages.' After the shock and awe of yesterday's performance on Hautacam, this was a more — dare we say it — ordinary victory. Pogacar's winning margin of 36 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard was impressive, but not vast; the real difference between them was how they made their way up the climb from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes. Vingegaard opted for his TT bike and looked awkward, if powerful. These are machines designed to maximise aerodynamics on level or rolling terrain — that the Visma-Lease A Bike rider wrestled his up this mountain so quickly is testament to his undoubted pedigree. Pogacar, in contrast, had the insouciance of a boy heading to the BMX track on the first day of the summer holidays. On the flat three kilometres at the start of the 10.9km route, the Slovenian threw his bike around each corner in a manner that belied the importance of the stage. This is someone who understands that that sport is entertainment, and he continues to enthral like no other and enjoy his victories. 'I'm not here to make enemies, but it's the Tour de France, you cannot just back off if there's opportunity for a stage win,' Pogacar said after the stage. 'You never know when your last day is on the Tour. I think I will say it honestly, the team pays you to win, not to give (wins) away, and there's a big big team behind you that supports you and works every single day of their career to come to the Tour, to win the Tour. 'I think if I single-handedly decided to start giving away just every opportunity that we can grab, I think my team would not be happy. If there's opportunity you go for it. In the end, when I finish my career, I will probably not speak to 99 per cent of the peloton, honestly, and I will focus on my close friends and family.' The youngest rider in history to 21 Tour de France stage victories ✅ #TDF2025 Keep making history, @TamauPogi 💛 #WeAreUAE — @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) July 18, 2025 Pogacar's 21st Tour stage win nudges his overall lead in this year's to more than four minutes. Tomorrow, the race takes on four more Pyrenean monsters. Guess who is odds-on to make it look simple again. Duncan Alexander Remco Evenepoel was slumped and hunched as he crossed the line, the aero bullet crushed into a fist of despair. When the Belgian lost time on Hautacam on stage 12, he may well have been looking ahead to today, but as he looked ahead, the only thing in his sightline was Vingegaard, who had started two minutes behind him. Having finished 12th on the stage, it was the first ever time Evenepoel, the world and Olympic champion, has ever been passed on a time trial. 'I didn't have the legs I wanted,' Evenepoel said at the finish. 'I felt empty. I prepared properly, but yesterday wasn't good and today was even worse. I didn't focus on Vingegaard. It's a very poor performance.' 😱 Jonas Vingegaard has caught up and overtaken @EvenepoelRemco on the final ramp to the Peyragudes Altiport! 😱 Jonas Vingegaard a repris et dépassé @EvenepoelRemco dans la rampe finale vers l'Altiport de Peyragudes !#TDF2025 — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 18, 2025 Of course, Evenepoel's TT prowess is usually best seen on the flat, and so Friday exposed a very different truth — that his legs are simply not at this Tour de France. The Hautacam was not a bad day, but reality. Evenepoel is still third, but barely, holding onto both the podium and his white jersey by just six seconds over Florian Lipowitz. Both are expected to be at Red Bull next season, alongside Primoz Roglic. Advertisement There is now a very real chance that Evenepoel finishes the Tour behind the German. Red Bull would then find themselves with questions to answer — should their big-money signing immediately be put in the driving seat at his new team? Jacob Whitehead Time trials are tests of technology and innovation as well as legs. But in many ways, the climbing element of Friday's stage offered far more of a conundrum than the flat TT on stage five — one which could be attacked in several different ways. With many teams prioritising weight over aerodynamics, the majority of riders were on their ordinary road bikes, some of which had TT wheels fitted. Remco Evenepoel went in the opposite direction, riding a stiffer TT bike with standard wheels. He was joined in that set-up by fellow Specialized riders Primoz Roglic, a former time trial Olympic champion, and Florian Lipowitz. Jonas Vingegaard, however, simply went full TT, complete with full TT helmet, defying the intense heat of the day. 'Yesterday was a terrible day for us,' he said after the stage. 'Until the final climb I actually felt quite good but then all of a sudden, (the) lights just went out, so to be able to come back like this today is very nice for us and we're super happy with it.' The main intrigue, however, came from race leader Tadej Pogacar, who rode his standard Colnago Y1RS, an optimised aero bike, albeit stripped back and without bottle cage, bidon, or proper bar tape. Electrical tape, the sort you can buy from a hardware shop, would do. Jacob Whitehead 'This is the most beautiful part of France,' the man said wistfully, gazing out of the cable car to the finish line. He motions out with a hand towards the mountains, the people lining the road below. 'Where would you rather be?' In the spirit of fairness and accuracy, it is worth noting that this man, five minutes earlier, has introduced himself as the mayor of the region. But also in the spirit of fairness and accuracy, in days like today, he certainly appears to be right. It is not easy to get to the summit at Peyragudes. The majority of visitors queued in a standstill for at least two hours to access the start at Loudenvielle, before many climbed up painstakingly on their bike. There were more polka dots on the route than people, but only just. There is limited French interest here, with the uphill slopes not favouring national TT champion Bruno Armirail. The most popular rider is Kevin Vauquelin, who delivered the ride of his life in Caen, but who only finished 11th today. Tomorrow, the peak will return to its quiet existence in the Pyrenees. But today will quickly bleed into tomorrow, and for the partying crowds at its summit, drinking, chanting, waving signs, they will do anything to stave it off. Jacob Whitehead There's a touch of the music festival about a mid-race time trial. You have to wait for the headliners to appear at the end, but there's plenty of non-mainstream content to enjoy earlier in the day. TotalEnergies' Matteo Vercher was the first rider down the start ramp, able to attack a leaderboard as fresh as the mountain air. His time of 30:01:67 was fastest only for a few minutes, though, overtaken by Lennert Van Eetvelt and then many, many more as the afternoon progressed. Advertisement For much of these early riders, these sort of stages act as an unofficial rest day — as long as they made the time cut. Which was not something that Australian time trial champion Luke Plapp had to worry about as the day progressed. The Jayco–Alula rider was the definition of locked in. Clad in the green and gold skinsuit, and with a disc wheel clamped into the frame of his road bike Plapp reportedly recorded his best-ever 20-minute power output, with his time of 24:58:44 standing until the last handful of riders crossed the line. But not everyone was as determined as Plapp. Matis Louvel dealt with the cruelly steep finish by zig-zagging across the road like an amateur taking on the Fred Whitton Challenge. Meanwhile, there was the odd sight of Bryan Coquard starting the time trial with a heavily bandaged hand. The French rider fractured his finger taking a feed bag during stage 12, and is booked in for an operation to repair it this evening. But why was an injured sprinter taking on the challenge of a mountain time trial? Well, why not? 👋 @bryancoquard has finished his time trial and his #TDF2025. Heal well and see you soon Bryan! 👋 @bryancoquard en a terminé avec son chrono et avec son #TDF2025. Soigne-toi bien Bryan ! — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 18, 2025 And while it's unlikely Coquard will be high-fiving anyone soon, that was not the case for Biniam Girmay, who, keeping up the festival spirit, introduced some much-appreciated crowd work into his ride. 🤜🤛 🇪🇷 @GrmayeBiniam took the time to enjoy the end of his time trial! 🤜🤛 🇪🇷 @GrmayeBiniam a pris le temps de savourer la fin de son chrono !#TDF2025 — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 18, 2025 Duncan Alexander The Tour returns to Superbagneres for the first time since 1989 — but with a profile that is very similar to stage 13 in the 1986 Tour, won by America's Greg LeMond on his way to overall victory. Will this stage be as pivotal in 2025 as it was 39 years ago? For more cycling, follow Global Sports on The Athletic app via the Discover tab
