The game of poker that is the 2023 Tour de France continued in the shadow of Mont Blanc, as defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard and his closest rival Tadej Pogacar bluffed their way to the summit finish. Yet again, despite the intense heat, the five mountain passes and the mountain fatigue, the pair were inseparable.
The only meaningful attack on Vingegaard’s slim overall lead came from the Slovenian in the final kilometre but was contained easily by the Dane. There was no change to the overall standings and with their next duel coming in Tuesday’s 22.4-kilometre time-trial, they remain divided by a mere 10 seconds.
Ahead of them, Wout Poels of the Netherlands won stage 15 of the Tour, from Les Gets to Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc. Poels dropped namesake Wout van Aert, of Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma team, on the steep climb of the Côte des Amerands, 11 kilometres from the finish.
The two Wouts were part of a three-man breakaway, including Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates colleague Marc Soler, that reached Domancy, at the foot of the final climb, with a seven-and-a-half-minute lead on the main peloton. Poels, who made his reputation as a support rider to Chris Froome when with Team Sky, described his first Tour stage win as “amazing”.
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“I really enjoyed my period with Sky,” he said. “I was four times in the winning team. It was really incredible to do, but unfortunately I could never fight for a stage win. Finally, to do it today, it’s great.”
As Poels took his Bahrain Victorious team’s second stage win, the real drama was expected further down the mountain as Adam Yates paced team leader Pogacar up the final climb, with Vingegaard glued to his rival’s rear wheel, anticipating the inevitable explosion of power. But it never really came and the pair rode to the finish together.
“Jonas was super good and I knew that I couldn’t really drop him,” Pogacar said after the stage, before describing the climb to Mont Blanc’s steep lower slopes as “too easy”. But the 24-year-old, Tour winner in 2020 and 2021, is still talking up his own chances, saying that he and his team go into the final week with “big, big confidence”.
“I know the time-trial pretty good,” he said. “I hope it suits me pretty well. Let’s see after that and then it’s two stages to go full gas for the team.”
The weekend’s racing was dominated by talk of mad men and motorbikes, after overexcited spectators and in-race “motos” caused a series of incidents. On Saturday, a potentially telling attack from Pogacar was blocked by two media motorbikes, hemmed in by raucous crowds, near the top of the Col de Joux Plane.
On Sunday, a spectator caught one of the riders and caused another mass stack-up early in the stage. “There was a narrowing in a town,” Vingegaard’s team-mate Sepp Kuss explained, “and a spectator was out in the road and just clipped my handlebar.
“It’s been such a hard race. Everybody is a bit tired and you lose a bit of alertness. There are always things that are a bit out of your control as well. Aside from nervous moments, sometimes there are crashes because of fatigue.”
Israel-Premier Tech rider Krists Neilands also crashed out of the lead group after trying to take a drink from an in-race motorbike on a fast descent. The incidents prompted outrage and hand-wringing, but the reality is that better crowd control, particularly at the Tour, is needed to limit such crashes.
Monday’s rest day will allow both Vingegaard and Pogacar to take stock. Barring significant mishaps, the time-trial on Tuesday, from Passy to Combloux, is neither long enough nor tough enough to make much difference to the gap between them, although there is sure to be a difference of a few seconds.
If they remain locked together, the next summit finish comes on Wednesday at Courchevel Altiport, after the monstrous climb of the 2,304-metre Col de la Loze. Pogacar considers that stage to be “really decisive”. Yet even then, it still could not be enough to divide the two riders, who remain head and shoulders above their peers. – Guardian
