In the hotly anticipated mountain battle between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar on stage 14 of the 2023 Tour de France, the winner was a rider nobody expected: Carlos Rodríguez.
Dropped on the final climb of the Col de Joux Plane as overall first and second duelled for bonus seconds, the 22-year-old Spaniard caught up and pushed on alone on a fast and technical descent to claim a stage win in his debut Tour and a second victory in two days for Ineos Grenadiers.
After two weeks of racing this Tour remains a battle of seconds. Victory in Morzine catapulted Rodríguez into third on the GC by just one second from Jai Hindley.
After Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates wrestled for control of the stage, Jonas Vingegaard added one second to his lead over Tadej Pogačar in the fight for the overall Tour.
In truth, that one second only tells one half of the story. The stage saw a remarkable and intriguing duel between the two best GC riders in the world on the hot and sweaty ascent of the Col de Joux Plane.
Pogačar launched one of his signature attacks with 3.5km to the summit and opened up a gap as he had done on previous stages to Cauterets and the Puy de Dôme. However on this occasion, Vingegaard clawed his way back to his rival’s wheel and set up a track sprint for the bonus seconds on offer at the top of the climb.
That fight tells the story of a Tour contested by two riders so closely matched in ability that the bonus seconds offered by race organisers may ultimately prove the difference between failure and success.
One last push by Pogačar with 600m to the Joux Plane summit was curtailed by the presence of a press motorbike and that misfortune put the Slovenian off his stride. Vingegaard exploited his rival’s hesitation to nab the seconds for himself; Rodríguez exploited it to catch the leaders and push on to victory.
Pogačar downplayed the significance of the incident in his post-race interviews but time will tell just how important that may turn out to be. For now, it is yet another twist in this fascinating and potentially era-defining battle for the Tour.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The 2023 Tour’s first serious alpine stage was called to a halt after just 8km when a large crash on the greasy roads out of the Geneva suburbs brought down a swathe of the peloton and occupied the Tour’s medical staff.
Organisers neutralised the race for 20 minutes to allow for treatment of the riders; Esteban Chaves and Louis Meintjes were the two biggest name riders to…