Tour de France: Pogacar strikes back - Vingegaard takes yellow from Hindley
DPA
· 06.07.2023
President Emmanuel Macron applauded as an enthusiastic fan, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar delivered the hoped-for Pyrenean spectacle.
Tour de France 2023: Pogacar outpaces Vingegaard
Although Vingegaard took the yellow jersey from Bora-Hansgrohe captain Jai Hindley at the first mountain finish of the 110th Tour de France, the Dane had to leave the stage win in Cauterets-Cambasque to his great rival Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian made an impressive comeback after his unexpected weakness the day before and showed that the Tour is far from over.
"What can I say? It was an epic day in the yellow jersey on mystical climbs. I enjoyed it and wanted to ride my own race. I was riding for my life," said Hindley. The Australian is now in third place overall, 1:34 minutes behind the new leader Jonas Vingegaard.
Emanuel Buchmann with a strong performance
Behind the Dane, Pogacar is within striking distance at 25 seconds back. Emanuel Buchmann put in another strong performance as Hindley's helper, dropping back five kilometres before the summit and out of the top 10 in the overall classification.
Bora sport director Rolf Aldag had already suspected that defending the yellow jersey would be a real challenge. In contrast to the teams of top stars Vingegaard and Pogacar, Bora-Hansgrohe does not have a pure mountain team at the 2023 Tour de France. Nevertheless, the German top team endeavoured to control the race, allowing a harmless group to pull away to a maximum of five minutes.
Jumbo-Visma takes the initiative
Bob Jungels and Buchmann gave Hindley all the support they could to claim the coveted jersey. "I got a lot of messages from home, people got up especially to watch the stage. I really want to keep the jersey," said the Australian before the start of the stage. On the climbs, Vingegaard's Jumbo team always took command and gradually decimated the peloton.
The main concern was to further weaken the two-time Tour de France winner Pogacar. The Slovenian had already shown unusual weaknesses on the first mountain stage the day before and lost over a minute to Vingegaard. "There were a lot of little things that came together. My form is good and I hope that I can still show that," said Pogacar and was combative. The 24-year-old had broken his scaphoid at the end of April and had come to the Tour with a training deficit and without much racing practice. His scaphoid is still bandaged.
Vingegaard attacks on the Tourmalet
The race got down to business on the legendary Tourmalet, the penultimate climb of the day. Jumbo stepped up the pace in the steeper second half, Vingegaard attacked immediately. The attack was only followed by Pogacar, who showed no weakness. Hindley had already lost two minutes to the duo of favourites at the summit of the Tourmalet, and Buchmann also suffered in the chasing group.
Vingegaard's next push came on the 16-kilometre climb to Cauterets-Cambasque, which despite its length is not one of the most difficult in the high mountains. Only in the last five kilometres did the gradient increase to double-digit percentages, which Vingegaard used to attack. However, he was unable to get rid of Pogacar and was apparently completely surprised by his counterattack, ultimately losing valuable time.
Sprinter on the train on Friday
After the two Pyrenean stages, it's back to the sprinters on Friday. From Mont-de-Marsan, the route is predominantly flat over 169.9 kilometres to Bordeaux. In the metropolis on the Atlantic, Phil Bauhaus will be hoping for another top result if he gets through the mountains well.
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