Dominance

Jonas Vingegaard and his Team Visma/Lease a Bike team went into this past Pyrenees weekend full of hope: the Dane’s form seemed to be rising, he’d just beaten Pogačar one-on-one and everyone, from TV pundits down to your humble Facebook contributor, was convinced that the Slovenian had abused his team, running them into the ground to sate his unquenchable thirst for victory.

Pogačar didn’t get the memo, as they say, and launched his team out of the blocks on Saturday, driving them as though the hounds of hell were at their heels. 6’3”, 176-pound Nils Politt, UAE Team Emirates’ main tempo man, slipping into his role as the new ‘Tractor’ of the peloton, was extraordinary on the day, almost single-handedly keeping the big breakaway of the day in check until it all came together at the base of the final, 10.6 km climb of Saint-Lary-Soulan - Pla d’Adet. UAE continued their perfect team game by sending Adam Yates up the road, ostensibly to chase down EF Education’s Ben Healy, but really to have him waiting up front for Pogačar’s attack. The explosion came out of the Slovenian as expected, Vingegaard, who had only Matteo Jorgenson to help at that point – a strong but not a “Winged Climber” - had no answer, Pogačar hooked up with Yates who blasted for a bit until the Yellow Jersey set off up the mountain, taking almost ten-seconds a kilometer out of Vingegaard to win at the top with a stunning 0:39” margin. The performance left everyone in shock, such was the speed and power shown by the Yellow Jersey.

Team Visma/Lease a Bike have spirit, that’s for certain, because, after their thrashing on Saturday, they went right on the attack the next day, certain that the 200-kilometer distance combined with heat and five mountain climbs, would tilt the race in their favor because surely, Pogačar must be tired. They really went at it, making the race as hard as they could, trying to exhaust the peloton, counting on Vingegaard’s deep endurance to come through. Problem was that the Dutch team is in shatters. Superman Wout van Aert along with an equally underperforming Jan Tratnik, two key men for the plan, went off the back quite early, leaving only Wilco Kelderman to do most of the work up to the final climb, where Matteo Jorgenson was to be the last man for the Dane.

The American confronted the moment I spoke of in my last post, of having to sacrifice his top-ten overall placing to give it all for his leader. The American, without hesitation went flat out, racing up the first half of the climb with everything he had. Vingegaard’s climb was, according to him, “the best performance of my career”. Third place – and happy to be there – Remco Evenepoel boasted of having beaten Marco Pantani’s record for the climb. Yet none of that mattered for Pogačar crossed the finish line a full 1:08” ahead of them all, having hit the highest power numbers of his life.

There are three hard stages, the Alps after all, left in the race. Pogačar is 3:09” ahead of Vingegaard and 5:19” over Evenepoel. His fourth placed teammate, the excellent Jǒao Almedia, is a whopping 10:54” down. 10thplaced Santiago Buitrago is at 16:32”…. I’d like to see Matteo Jorgenson allowed to fight his way back into the top ten overall this week and am sure that the Visma boys, and all those with empty hands so far in this Tour, will put on a good, entertaining show for us. Every stage is hard and you never know what might happen, but the Slovenian wunderkind is truly of a different species, a champion of the like we’ve never before seen. We now can only watch and marvel at his dominance and cycling perfection.