Stage 12: Briançon to Alpe d’Huez
Date: July 14, 2022
Distance: 165.1km
Stage timing: 13:05 – 17:55 CEST
Stage type: Mountain
The sight of a seemingly impregnable race leader loosening his grip on the Tour de France atop the Col du Granon inevitably brought up memories of 1986 and all that, and the nostalgia continues on stage 12 to Alpe d’Huez.
A day after Greg LeMond deposed Bernard Hinault on the Granon all those years ago, the sparring pair finished arm in arm atop Alpe d’Huez. As if on cue, this year’s Tour serves up an exact replica of that route on Thursday, with the peloton facing the Col du Galibier and the Col de la Croix de Fer ahead of the final haul up the Alpe.
But while the echoes of LeMond and Hinault provide the obvious background noise, the contest between the new maillot jaune Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and the deposed leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) perhaps chimes more closely with other Tours past.
When the hitherto invulnerable Pogačar suddenly exposed an Achilles heel midway up the Col du Granon, one thought of Miguel Indurain’s most unexpected collapse in nearby Les Arcs in 1996. The seemingly fearless offensive carried out by Jumbo-Visma, meanwhile, seemed to come from the same reckless place as Luis Ocaña’s immortal assault on Eddy Merckx on the road to Orcières-Merlette in 1971.
In his Tour career to this point, meanwhile, Pogačar has somehow managed to mimic Merckx’s cannibalistic appetite on the bike, while simultaneously carrying himself with Indurain’s inherent gentleness off it. It remains to be seen how Pogačar will respond to this, the first setback of his reign, but the examples of Indurain and Merckx represent the two possible extremes.
In 1996, Indurain’s dramatic défaillance on Les Arcs was viewed by most observers as a temporary blip. The Spaniard’s dominance over the previous five years had been such that it was tempting, or at least logical, to write off his losses as a simple hunger flat, but the fightback never materialised. Although Indurain steadied the ship slightly in the Val d’Isère time trial the following afternoon, his challenge for a record sixth Tour would run definitively aground at Hautacam, where – in another echo of 2022 – his Danish challenger Bjarne Riis dominated.
Merckx, on the other hand, couldn’t bear to allow rumours of his demise to linger for more than 48 hours. The Tour broke for a rest day after Ocaña’s solo win at Orcières-Merlette,…
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