After another day of intense heat, multiple climbs and growing fatigue, Jonas Vingegaard retained his narrow lead on his Tour de France rival Tadej Pogacar and then addressed scepticism towards his dominant performances, saying he “fully understood” it.
Following another stage through the Alps in which he and Pogacar were inseparable, the Dane was asked about the ever-increasing speeds on the Tour’s major climbs. “We have to be sceptical because of what happened in the past,” he said. “Otherwise it would just happen again.
“I fully understand all the questions we get about it, the only thing I can say is I am not taking anything. To be honest, I am happy there is a bit of scepticism about it. We are going faster, quicker than back then, maybe. And also the food, material, training, everything is different.”
The game of poker between the pair continued in the shadow of the highest peak in the Alps, as they bluffed their way to the summit finish at Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc. The only meaningful attack on Vingegaard’s slim overall lead came from the Slovenian in the final kilometre but was contained easily by the Dane. Their next duel comes in the 22.4km time trial on Tuesday, and they remain divided by a mere 10 seconds.
Ahead of them, Wout Poels of the Netherlands won this 15th stage of the Tour, which started in Les Gets, after dropping his namesake Wout van Aert, of Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma team, on the steep climb of the Cote des Amerands, 11km from the finish.
The two Wouts were part of a three-man breakaway, including Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates colleague Marc Soler, that reached Domancy, at the foot of the final climb, with a lead on the main peloton of seven-and-a-half minutes.
Poels, who made his reputation as a support rider to Chris Froome when with Team Sky, described his first Tour stage win as “amazing”, adding: “I really enjoyed my period with Sky. I was four times in the winning team. It was really incredible to do, but unfortunately I could never fight for a stage win. Finally, to do it today, it’s great.”
As Poels took his Bahrain Victorious team’s second stage win, the real drama was expected further down the mountain as Adam Yates paced the team leader Pogacar up the final climb, with Vingegaard glued to his rival’s rear wheel, anticipating the inevitable explosion of power. But it never really came and the pair rode to the finish together.
“Jonas was super good and I knew that I couldn’t really drop him,” Pogacar said after the stage, before describing the climb to Mont Blanc’s steep lower slopes as “too easy”.
But the Slovenian, Tour winner in 2020 and 2021, is still talking up his chances, saying he and his team go into the Tour’s final week with “big, big confidence”, adding: “I know the time trial pretty good. I hope it suits me pretty well. Let’s see after that and then it’s two stages to go full gas for the team.”
The weekend’s racing was dominated by talk of mad men and motorbikes, after overexcited spectators and in-race “motos” caused a series of incidents. On Saturday, a potentially telling attack from Pogacar was blocked by two media motorbikes, hemmed in by raucous crowds, near the top of the Col de Joux Plane.
On Sunday, a spectator caught one of the riders and caused another mass stack-up early in the stage. “There was a narrowing in a town,” Vingegaard’s teammate Sepp Kuss said, “and a spectator was out in the road and just clipped my handlebar. It’s been such a hard race. Everybody is a bit tired and you lose a bit of alertness. There are always things that are a bit out of your control as well. Aside from nervous moments, sometimes there are crashes because of fatigue.”
The Israel-Premier Tech rider Krists Neilands also crashed out of the lead group after trying to take a drink from an in-race motorbike on a fast descent. The incidents prompted outrage and hand-wringing, but the reality is that better crowd control, particularly at the Tour, is needed to limit such crashes.
The rest day on Monday will allow both Vingegaard and Pogacar to take stock. Barring significant mishaps, the time trial on Tuesday, from Passy to Combloux, is neither long enough nor tough enough to make much difference to the gap between them, although there is sure to be a difference of a few seconds.
If they remain locked together, the next summit finish is on Wednesday at Courchevel Altiport, after the monstrous climb of the 2,304-metre Col de la Loze. Pogacar considers that stage could be “really decisive”. Yet even then, it might not be enough to divide two riders who remain head and shoulders above their peers.
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