Pogacar praises rival’s sportsmanship after fall
AHANDSHAKE from Tadej Pogacar to Jonas Vingegaard showed gratitude for a moment of great sportsmanship but could yet double as the defending champion’s concession after Vingegaard moved to the brink of Tour de France glory yesterday.
The pace set by Vingegaard’s outstanding team-mate Wout Van Aert proved too much for Pogacar in the last four kilometres of the Tour’s final mountain stage, allowing Vingegaard to ride away to his second stage win and first in the yellow jersey.
Putting more than a minute into Pogacar by the summit of the Hautacam, the JumboVisma rider stretched his lead to three minutes 26 seconds, with tomorrow’s time trial expected to be the last real chance to create significant time gaps.
Pogacar knew he needed to put the pressure on during this 143km stage from Lourdes, and looked to the tight, twisty descent off the penultimate climb, the Col de Spandelles, to do it.
It looked like working – Vingegaard almost lost control on a left-hander before rebalancing – but moments later it was Pogacar who went wide. With his tyres in the gravel, Pogacar slipped and went down.
Rather than push on, Vingegaard waited for Pogacar to recover, and accepted the outstretched hand from the UAE Team Emirates rider as he drew up alongside.
Pogacar was urged to attack again by his team director but the Slovenian shook his head and, hobbled with blood running from the back of his left thigh, he would be left behind on the climb to the finish.
“There couldn’t be a better way to lose the Tour de France than this,” the 23-year-old said. “I gave it all today thinking of the GC. I will leave the race with no regrets…
“I have nothing but respect to Jonas Vingegaard. I think we respect each other a lot. It was fine for him to wait. It’s me who wanted to go fast on the descent, but I pushed it too far and crashed – can’t blame anyone for that.”
That it was Van Aert setting the pace as Pogacar dropped back underlined another remarkable day for JumboVisma, who are bidding to become the first team since Team Telekom in 1997 to win both the yellow and green jerseys in a single Tour, and now stand to add the polka dots too.
Van Aert, already mathematically assured of winning the points classification if he reaches Paris, attacked from the flag, won the intermediate sprint, led the remnants of a breakaway on to the final climb and then took over the pacing for Vingegaard with five kilometres to go.
If he had won the stage
Van Aert would have become the leader of the mountains classification too, but that honour instead belongs to Vingegaard.