For the second consecutive day at the 112th Tour de France, Tadej Pogačar was first and Jonas Vingegaard was runner up. In Friday’s final time trial, a Cat. 1 Pyreneen climb, the Slovenian put an extra 36 seconds into the Dane. Third place Remco Evenepoel had a rough day. Michael Woods was the top Canadian in 88th.
The GC Situation Overnight
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 45:22:51
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) +3:31
3) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium/Soudal-QuickStep) +4:45
4) Florian Lipowitz (Germany/Red Bull) +5:34
5) Kévin Vauquelin (France/Arkea-B&B Hotels) +5:40
It would seem that Evenepoel could be confident in keeping his podium spot away from Florian Lipowitz. The gaps were considerable enough in the top-10 that it was hard to see riders moving up.
The Course
Friday was an 11-km time trial up 7.9-percent Peyragudes, where Pogačar beat Vingegaard in 2022. A section of 16 percent led to the altiport at the peak (1520 metres). The time checks were at the 3.5-km and 7.5-km points. Equipment was a mélange of TT and road.
In the first half of 171 riders, Australian time trial champion Luke Plapp knocked Lennard van Eetvelt–the 15th to start–off the hot seat with 24:58, 2:51 faster than the Belgian.
Geraint Thomas finished his final Tour time trial.
Adam Yates, UAE-Emirates’ third-highest placed rider at 28th, was on a fine ride. The 2023 podium man posted the second provision time of 25:15.
After dropping five places to tenth on Friday, Matteo Jorgenson was looking to bounce back up. He cracked Luke Plapp’s best time at the first intermediate check, and Primož Roglič was 0.34 seconds slower. Vauquelin followed hard on their heels. Evenepoel beat Jorgenson by 10 seconds. Vingegaard trailed the world time trial champion by three seconds and the world road champion by eight seconds. The cream was rising to the top.
At Time Check 2, Roglič was flying down in the TT skis. Lipowitz was shy of his teammate’s time by eight seconds. Vingegaard came through and smashed the Red Bull rider’s time by 28 seconds. The man in yellow was 23 seconds faster than the Dane. Evenepoel was lagging.
In fact, Evenepoel was really suffering. Vingegaard ran down his two-minute man within 50 metres of the line and ripped up Roglič’s…
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