Entering the Mountains
A good storyline to follow this Tour is the ongoing battle between two North Americans: Yank Matteo Jorgenson and Canadian Derek Gee, the track racer who climbs. The rivalry first popped up at the Critérium du Dauphiné, the week-long “mini-Tour” held in May, where Jorgenson was second overall with Gee third. The duo are very well matched, both well over 6-feet tall, excellent climbers and monsters on the flats. Jorgenson has won a Paris-Nice while Gee was second on the points and climbers’ classifications in the 2023 Giro, showing his excellent versatility. Jorgenson too can do it all, as his win in the very tough Belgian Dwars door Vlaanderen classic race shows. Gee, interestingly, after a poor classics campaign last year, has eliminated those races from his calendar with his focus clearly on the Tour.
Their duel began to heat up after the Stage 7 Time Trial where Jorgenson rocketed to a 7th place finish with Gee landing in 14th, putting them in 9th and 14th overall. Not to be outdone, Gee put on a wildly aggressive performance on the Troyes gravel stage, in front the entire day, re-attacking immediately when caught, finishing third on the day, as unsung Antony Turgis stole the glory with his powerful sprint. Nevertheless, the Canadian’s efforts moved him into 9th overall with Jorgenson 10th, one-second behind. They both faded slightly on the mountainous Stage 11, dropping to 11th and 12th overall, with Gee gaining almost a full minute on his rival. This weekend with its high Pyrenees mountains will be their next GC test. Jorgenson is on Vingegaard duty while Gee is a free electron, able to do as he likes. There may come one of those moments of truth for Jorgenson, when the tactics decide that he must sacrifice his top 10 goals to save Vingegaard, to completely empty himself out for the team. That will be a hard moment for him and one we should all be looking for.
Tadej Pogačar says that “he’s like a goldfish” in his ability to forget any bad races and turn his focus to the present, a trait he shares with Bruce Lee among other great achievers. A sort of relentless positivity. He’s going to need that skill now to forget how his entire first-half Tour strategy has gone so wrong. The tactic of flogging his team into the ground with the idea of crushing what they thought was an undertrained Vingegaard in the early, hard days, of going into the high mountains with a big cushion over the Dane, all that is now out the window.
Stage 11, Évaux-les-Bains to Le Lioran, 211-kilometers (132-miles!) across the famed Massif Central, was by all accounts, one of the hardest races in memory. The Auvergne region, with its twisting, up and down narrow roads is hard enough, but they designed the stage to build up to a crescendo over the final, very hard climbs of the day. It certainly didn’t disappoint. When Pogačar planted what he thought was the final kill move, when he blew out of the remaining contenders thinking to leave them behind until the finish, then saw Vingegaard steadily catching him, goldfish or not, questions must have begun to arise in his mind. That final sprint between the two of them for the stage was the clearest display that I’ve ever seen of the massive egos of Tour de France winners. That sprint was sheer will, on both their parts, with Jonas Vingegaard the more willful, showing who he is, and “how dare they try and kill me off like that, this will shut them up..” attitude very visible in his actions. Pogačar was clearly shocked by the defeat, his normal smiling demeanor turned grim, even when the cameras were rolling.
It's now a two-man race. Evenepoel seems happy to ride for third and maybe pick up another stage, Roglič has crashed out yet again. Vingegaard has made a remarkable recovery after his dreadful crash, but one asks if his lack of base might affect him in the final week. Pogačar has the Giro in his legs and an exhausted team. The hard parts are yet to come, and surprises always in store. This is a grand Tour de France.