Tadej Pogacar gives his rival Jonas Vingegaard a taste of the upcoming mountain stages at the Tour. The Slovenian attacks twice and is successful once.
Shortly before the finish in the winter sports resort of Superdévoluy, cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar inflicted another, but narrow, defeat on his rival Jonas Vingegaard in the 111th Tour de France. It was only two seconds after the sprint duel, but the message to the Danish defending champion was clear: You can’t get past me. It was a mini demonstration of power before the tough mountain stages ahead.
“With my attack I put some time between myself and Jonas,” said Pogacar after the 17th stage on Wednesday. With the instinctive attack on the Col du Noyer he just wanted to “test his legs” to find out whether they were still good in the third week.
The favorites for the overall victory did not allow themselves a break even on the easiest of the last four Alpine stages. Pogacar, who has won almost all of his duels with Vingegaard so far, attacked his opponent on the most difficult climb. But the 27-year-old was initially able to parry the attack. Then the two-time Tour winner sprinted away from Vingegaard again shortly before the finish.
Exceptional rider Pogacar continues to have a comfortable lead of 3:11 minutes over Vingegaard. The 25-year-old has a good chance of winning the tour in Nice on Sunday. Belgian time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel finished ahead of the other two favorites and made up some time. He is in third place, 5:09 minutes behind Pogacar.
Carapaz wins on stage 17
After the tough 177.8 kilometers between Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux and the winter sports resort of Superdévoluy, the Ecuadorian Carapaz emerged as the solo winner ahead of the Briton Simon Yates and the Spaniard Enric Mas. The remaining seven German riders played no role among the best riders. “It’s very special for me,” said the visibly relieved Carapaz.
For him, it is the first Tour stage win of his career. The professional has only managed stage wins at the Giro d’Italia and the Spanish Vuelta. In 2019, he even won the Giro. The climbing specialist should be particularly pleased about this, as the winner of the gold medal in Tokyo (2021) was not nominated by his national association for the games soon to be held in Paris. Jhonatan Narvaez will take part instead.
Phil Bauhaus did not experience Carapaz’s day victory as part of the field. The professional cyclist said au revoir one day after his second place in Nîmes. As he did last year, the 30-year-old sprinter ended the Tour de France early. The day before, the Bocholt native had confirmed that he wanted to stay until the end in Nice.
“It’s never easy to go home. He and the team sat down and decided that it was the best decision,” said Nikias Arndt, Bauhaus’ teammate, to ARD. One day before the hilly stage on Wednesday, the sprinters had their last chance to win the Tour.
Girmay in the intermediate sprint ahead of Phiipsen
Finally, it was mainly the overall classification riders around superstar Pogacar and the sprinters who were able to show off on the individual stages. The classic breakaway groups had a tough time near the finish, except for a few stretches. The hilly stage at the end with 2850 meters of altitude in the Alps practically invited the breakaway riders. At the end, there were three mountain classifications in categories three to one on the program.
Nevertheless, in the first half of the race, attention was focused on the sprinters around Jasper Philipsen and the Eritrean whiz kid Biniam Girmay. After Girmay’s fall the day before, Philipsen’s day victory reduced the gap to the leader of the sprint classification in the green jersey to 32 points.
In the intermediate sprint just 64 kilometers from the finish a day later, Girmay crossed the line ahead of the Belgian. There are still three intermediate sprints left for the fast riders before the final stage in Nice.
The breakaway riders will be in demand again on Thursday. The professional cyclists will have to tackle 179.5 kilometers with five smaller climbs on the 18th stage between Gap and Barcelonnette. There are two tough Alpine stages on Friday and Saturday. The Tour de France ends on Sunday with an individual time trial in Nice.
Source: Stern
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