It was only a few days ago that after being caught and then beaten by Jonas Vingegaard in the Massif Central, the momentum was swinging away from Tadej Pogačar in the fight for Tour de France yellow. But not now, definitely not now. Then, at the conclusion of stage 11, the UAE Team Emirates rider had an advantage of 1:06 to Remco Evenepoel in second, but after his stage 15 masterclass he has almost tripled his lead in yellow to 3:09.
The Tour’s not over – Pogačar predictably rebuffed talk that it is: “The Tour finishes when you arrive in Nice,” he stated – but he’s got the sort of lead he’s been craving of having since his grip on the Tour slipped in 2022. “I could not imagine a better weekend,” the Slovenian said atop Plateau de Beille, another climb in which he set the fastest ascent. “I was counting down the final kilometres and minutes of today’s race, but it was worth it. It was so hard so I’m super happy. I couldn’t ask for more.”
Attacks are the name of the game with the insatiable Pogačar, and there was an insinuation from speaking with his team that he was slightly vexed not to have a bigger advantage by the race’s midway point. No such frustration now. “Now the time gap is looking good,” he said. “I was saying this already when it was just 1:15, but now we just need to keep focused on the last six days and keep this mentality like we have now.” Matxin Fernández, Pogačar’s manager at UAE, was gushing of his star rider. “Right now, I think the advantage we have is comfortable,” he smiled.
When Vingegaard accelerated out of a reduced lead group with 10km still to ride on the Pyrenean beast, Pogačar was unflustered. Not since last year’s Tour on the Col de la Loze has he been a properly beaten man – 57 race days and 12 months ago. “He did a super good attack there,” he said of the Dane’s move. “It was a steep climb so I didn’t want to go past him or pull with him. I was hoping he would get tired and would want to try and attack again but not have the best legs to do it.
“He set a super good pace and when he finally attacked again, then I saw I could maybe make a difference if I tried. It was hard to break him to make a bigger gap so I was going all out to the finish line. All the time I was hearing 35 seconds so I was thinking he was recovering and coming back but in the end I cracked him. I’m super happy to get this gap.”
Pogačar has won two stages in as many days, crushing the belief that Vingegaard was going to be able to keep pace with him once the race got to the highest mountains. The Alps are on the horizon, and danger lurks especially on stage 19, but until now, defending champion Vingegaard hasn’t even threatened Pogačar. When he attacks, it usually sticks, and no-one other than Evenepoel in the time trial has taken time out of him. It’s been as good as a perfect opening fortnight for Pogačar.
“We go to the rest day tomorrow with a big smile and I hope we can reset a little bit for the final big fight in the last four days,” he said. “I’m having a great time and have an amazing team behind me.”
