Cycling Tour’s tale of the unexpected caps off strangest of seasons
AS Tadej Pogacar climbed on to the top step of the Tour de France podium on the Champs-Elysees, there were still some people doing double takes.
When the Tour set out from Nice three weeks ago, few were certain the race would ever reach Paris as France battled with rising cases of coronavirus. Far fewer would have predicted that a Tour debutant, who turned 22 yesterday, would emerge as the winner.
This strangest of seasons was always likely to throw up some unexpected results, but the drama of Saturday’s time trial on La Planche des Belles Filles was one for the ages - the most stunning climax since Greg LeMond stole yellow from Laurent Fignon in Paris in 1989.
The Tour’s designers have removed more and more time trialling kilometres from the race in recent years, trying to keep the fight for yellow as open as possible, but if anyone doubted the discipline’s place in a Grand Tour, Saturday should be their answer.
The ‘race of truth’ exposed the cracks in Primoz Roglic with exacting cruelty - the Slovenian forced to wrestle his bike up the 24 per cent gradient to the line already knowing his dream was over.
Instead glory went to Pogacar, a young man riding only his second
Grand Tour and an afterthought when the contenders were assessed in the build-up. He left the race with not only the yellow jersey but also the King of the Mountains’ polka dots and the best young rider’s white.
After Egan Bernal’s success at the age of 22 last year, it is confirmation that a new generation has arrived to challenge perceptions that a rider must spend several years maturing before they can tackle cycling’s biggest races.
Meanwhile, the inquest will begin for Roglic and Jumbo-Visma. Everything seemed to have gone according to the script for the prerace favourite, who took yellow from Adam Yates on stage nine and
Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar looked bulletproof as his teammates controlled the race.
Roglic had at his disposal domestiques who would be team leaders anywhere else - with 2017 Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin, second in the 2018 Tour, among those to sacrifice his own ambitions in service of the leader.
Wout Van Aert was superb winning two sprints, coming fourth in the time trial, and yet also there in the finales of the mountain stages, setting an imposing pace that would break the ambitions of so many others. One of the striking images of Saturday’s drama was the sight of Van Aert and Dumoulin watching in stony silence as Roglic fell at the final hurdle.