The experiment of broadcasting snatches from team radio conversations on this Tour de France had been an underwhelming one up to this point, with viewers gleaning little insight as they eavesdropped on the most banal of interactions between directors and riders. And then, on the upper reaches of the Col de la Loze, came an unexpected moment of arid truth.
8km or so from the top of the climb, where the gradient stiffened towards 9% and where the outcome of the entire race was about to be resolved definitively, the radio finally crackled into life with something of substance: Tadej Pogačar’s admission of defeat.
“I’m gone, I’m dead,” Pogačar told his UAE Team Emirates companions forlornly but clearly as he lost contact with the yellow jersey group. It was something like the moment Roberto Duran turned to the referee during his second title fight against Sugar Ray Leonard and said, at least per legend: “No más.”
Unlike the boxing ring, there was no stopping the contest. In cycling, the cruelty continues to the finish line, and Jonas Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma teammate Sepp Kuss was quickly deployed to turn the screw as tightly as he could to ensure there would be no way back for Pogačar. 50 metres would become five minutes come the top of the climb, and almost six by the finish in Courchevel.
For two weeks, Pogačar’s duel with Vingegaard had hung beguilingly in the balance, a race of fine margins that seemed to evoke memories of Fignon, LeMond and 1989 at every turn. In the space of two days, it has suddenly morphed into the kind of procession Merckx and Coppi used to inflict upon their subjects during their imperial phases.
This year as last, Vingegaard and Pogačar have been in a class of their own at the Tour, zooming away from the peloton at will whenever the road climbs and even indulging their running battle by exchanging blows on flatter stages. In the final reckoning, however, Vingegaard has proceeded to give Pogačar a beating that surpasses even the Slovenian’s own domination of the 2021 Tour de France.
When the race broke for its second rest day in Saint Gervais on Sunday evening, Vingegaard was just ten seconds ahead of Pogačar in the overall standings, and it was hard to envisage any other scenario than the Tour being decided by a breathless, final rally on the penultimate day in the Vosges.
After Vingegaard put a startling 1:38 into his rival in the 22.4km time trial to Combloux on Tuesday, however, this Tour was suddenly at match point, and…
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