On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 8/1/2023
The Little Great Dane
If you read my racing-related columns, you know I’m reluctant to make predictions about upcoming events. We see too many upsets and surprises and fickle-fingers-of-fate to venture out onto that thin ice. However, in last month’s column (about the races between the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France), I did say that Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) was in superb shape going into le Tour, coming off his dominant win at the Dauphiné; and I expressed some reservations about the fitness of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), still working his way back from his broken wrist at Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Not predictions exactly. Just observations. But they proved to be pretty accurate.
I’m sure you all know who won: Jonas Vingegaard, piling up a Grand Canyon-sized gap of 7:29 between himself and Tadej Pogačar. Only once since 2000 has the distance between 1st and 2nd been so large: when Vincenzo Nibali beat Jean-Christophe Peraud by 7:37 in 2014.
It should also be obvious that, as most folks expected, this was a two-man battle. No one else really mattered. There were plenty of moments of glory for lesser lights but they didn’t factor into the GC battle to any significant degree. To paraphrase Macbeth, they strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage and then were heard no more.
Last year, the talking heads, including this one, all agreed that Vingegaard’s Jumbo team had been physically and tactically stronger than Pogačar’s UAE team, and that advantage had helped the upstart dethrone the seemingly, formerly invincible two-time champ. I don’t see people making that assertion this year. I would still give a slight edge to the Jumbos but the UAE team did okay…pretty much what one would hope to achieve. And Jumbo didn’t have Primoz Roglič in their line-up as an added weapon to torment Pogačar. So call the team aspect just about a wash.
There were ten stages out of 21 where Pogačar and Vingegaard took seconds or minutes out of each other. Of those ten, Pogačar got the better of Vingegaard seven times. And he looked good doing it…wicked attacks that gapped his rival. The problem was each of these attacks netted him only a handful of seconds apiece. Vingegaard hung in there and limited his losses each time. But on the three stages where Vingegaard got the better of Pogačar, he put big time into him: 1:04 on Stage 5, 1:48 on Stage 16, and a whopping 5:45 on Stage 17.
The first of those big gains—on Stage 5—came when Vingegaard attacked on the last pitch of the last climb: Col de Marie Blanque: 5 km at over 10%. Pogačar chased but couldn’t reel him back in, even with almost 20 km of downhill and false flat from the summit to the finish, and even with a hammering group of ten around him to keep things on the boil. (Vingegaard hooked up with three other riders for his run down the mountain to the finish.)
That seemed to support the premise that Pogačar was not fully back from his injuries and his long lay-off with less-than-ideal training. But he looked unperturbed and on Stages 6, 9, and 13, he attacked Vingegaard and chipped away at his lead, eventually trimming it from :53 after Stage 5 to just :09 after Stage 13. I at least began to think Stage 5 had been some sort of fluke and that Pogačar would eventually bust through into the lead for good. But that :09 deficit was as close as he got.
Stage 16 was the only time trial of the Tour and it was a real Race of Truth: only 22.4 km (14 miles) but with the final 6 km steadily uphill, including 3 km at 8.5%. Pogačar rode really well. He almost caught his two-minute man, Carlos Rodriguez, and when he finished, he had set the fastest time of the day. However, while he was almost catching the man in front of him, the man behind him was almost catching him. Vingegaard crossed the line just :12 behind Pogačar, which means he beat him by 1:48…a huge gap and a stunning victory against one of the best time trialers of this era.
The real shocker though was Stage 17. Pogačar called it his worst day ever on a bike. Said he was dead. This was on the last long climb of the HC Col de la Loze (28 km at 6%). With about 10 km to the summit, Pogačar blew up. Dropped off the back of the group with the other top guns and continued to fall away, with just one teammate left to sheepdog him home. His top lieutenant, Adam Yates, was allowed to continue up the hill, trying to protect his 3rd place overall, which he did. Meanwhile, Vingegaard was pushing on, with Sepp Kuss pacing him, as they worked their way up through a disintegrating breakaway group of about 30 riders. Two more Jumbo teammates were in that break and as each one was reeled in, they gave it one last shot of energy to help Vingegaard up the hill…more clever team strategy for Jumbo, getting those guys in the break. (It’s the little things…)
Pogačar eventually struggled home in 22nd place, 5:45 behind Vingegaard. If the Tour wasn’t over after the Stage 16 time trial, it certainly was now. There has been a huge amount of speculation as to why Pogačar cratered so badly. Was his fitness not back to 100% after the crash in late April and the long recovery? Was the wrist still troubling him? He crashed earlier in that same stage, landing on his left side—same side as the broken wrist. You could see the blood on his elbow later. Pros crash so often we sometimes almost take them for granted, like a rain squall or a flat. But anyone who has hit the pavement at 25 or 30 mph knows it’s a brutal jolt to one’s body. Most of us would climb in a sag or call for a ride home and then be off the bike for however long it took to feel whole again. In this case, Pogačar took that pounding an hour or so before tackling one of the hardest ascents of the entire tour. So was that what did him in? I’ve seen a number of interviews with him and I’m none the wiser as to what really laid him low.
He had enough left to out-sprint Vingegaard on the last mountain stage (20) for the win. The bonus seconds trimmed a few seconds off Vingegaard’s lead and perhaps made Pogačar feel a bit better about himself and his tour. But it was picking through the crumbs after the banquet was over.
Three years ago, after Pogačar’s second consecutive TdF victory, everyone was amazed at this young talent—just 22 at the time—and wondering how many grand tours he might win before he was done. Two Tours later and he still has just the two wins…and in the meantime, the little fishmonger from Copenhagen has won the event twice himself. Back then, we were wondering: who could possibly beat Pogačar? Now we know. That said, I’m not anywhere close to consigning Pogačar to the scrap heap of history. He’s barely into the prime of his career. This ain’t over…
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net