Pau—Luz Ardiden, 129km
It was another fun mountain stage on the Tour’s last day in the Pyrenees, but one could not help but feeling we had seen all of this before. Like yesterday the profile was pan flat for more than the first half of the course until the mountains began. Yesterday there were two Category1s before a Beyond Category summit finish. Today there was the Lord of All Pyrenean climbs, the Beyond Category Tourmalet, and another Beyond Category summit finish up to the Luz Ardiden. In hindsight, perhaps it was bold of the organizers to have two stages with such similar designs back-to-back. Across the flat it is difficult for a fearsome break to establish, so if people were looking for a headliner GC battle, for the second day in a row they got it. It was good to see again, but I cannot lie the novelty of it wore off for me today. It was still a fun watch, but sorry in advance if this stage report takes the day down from an 8.3 to a 6.7.
The Musketeer Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep) and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) were among others in a small breakaway on an extremely short leash today; I question if they ever had more than a 2-minute advantage. Perhaps there were four of them together across the Intermediate Sprint, thus a sizable share of Points would be available to the Green Jersey hopefuls. Yesterday, Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) had successfully outfoxed Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-Quickstep) in the Intermediate Sprint to eat into Cav’s advantage by a solitary Point. Today the roles reserved, Cavendish and Quickstep lead out man Michael Mokov the Tactical Grandmaster proved too strong for Matthews. Then it was onto the Tourmalet.
The breakaway must have had no illusions, with only a minute gap to the peloton where all the top GC climbers were being sheltered by teammates, there was no way this break was going to survive. Yesterday the break started with an 8:30 gap and even they in the end did not have a chance. Once more UAE looked good controlling the peloton, and Ineos lurked in the paceline as well surely desiring to take a stage win this Tour. The top of the Tourmalet approached without much action besides the breakaway dangling ahead out front. The Tourmalet is one of or the oldest climb(s) to appear on the Tour, and it is the most used on the Tour—it has been scaled on at least 2/3 of all editions of the Tour. Both sides can be raced up and descended down. Sometimes it is raced over mid-stage, like today, sometimes it is used as a summit finish like it was in 2019 when Groupama’s Thibaut Pinot took a sensational stage win. But I have not the heart to say more about the Tourmalet this year, for the KOM Hunters did not properly come to play on it.
For the past week, the KOM Polka-Dot Jersey hopefuls and competition animators have been Bahrain’s Wout Poels, Arkea’s Nairo Quintana, ISN’s Mike Woods, and Jumbo’s Wout Van Aert. But with yesterday’s Beyond Category Col du Poretet summit finish worth double points: Tadej Pogacar moved up 40 KOM Points to a total of 67 KOM Points for this Tour, which put him in second on the KOM Classification going into today’s last mountain stage of this Tour. Wout Poels wore the KOM Polka-Dot Jersey today, leading the Classification with 78 KOM Points. 20 KOM Points would be available for first over the top of the Tourmalet, another summit-finish-double-points 40 KOM Points would be available at the top of the Beyond Category Luz Ardiden climb where the Tour was finishing today. Thus even if Wout Poels took the Max KOM Points over the Tourmalet, if Pogacar won the stage, Poels could not beat him unless he somehow hung on and beat some of the top ten GC men and their other domestiques up the final climb. The most likely outcome was that Young Beowulf Pogacar would win the stage, and Poels would score nothing on the final climb. Thus Young Beowulf Crowned King Pogacar might once again be holding three jerseys at the end of this stage as he did last year in Paris. In the final kilometers of the Tourmalet, Canadian and once KOM hopeful Mike Woods attacked and Wout Poels followed him. By this point, EF’s Colombian Rigoberto Uran was already suffering a horrible day and dropping out the back of the peloton losing his chance at the Tour podium in Paris. Ahead Groupama’s David Gaudu and Total Energie’s Pierre Latour were putting in strong rides up front.
The top of the Tourmalet was misty and foggy, but it was not too difficult to figure out what was going on. Gaudu and Latour went 1-2 over the top and took the max KOM Points, Wout Poels wasted his energy still fighting Mike Woods, his old King of the Mountains rival. Both needed as many points as possible to hold off Pogacar, but they did not work together. Poels would go on to sprint away from Woods in the final meters of the Tourmalet, but he only took 4th place on the climb to score 10 Points—half the maximum available. It did not bode well for his Polka-Dot defense against Tadej Pogacar. I cannot contain my frustration: what have these guys been doing the past three days? For the past two mountain stages, neither got into the breakaways, and both scored at most a handful of Points combined. And because of cagey tactics, yesterday without even trying for the Polka-Dots, Pogacar got himself into contention for that competition. And if today were a repeat of yesterday in the finale with another Pogacar summit finish win, he would most likely be snatching the Polka-Dots from the guys who battled all the way from the foothills of the Alps to Andorra. But you can’t blame Pogacar for getting himself into contention for Polka-Dots without even trying. Perhaps next year the KOM scoring system will need some tinkering or tweaking, but for this Tour the Points available were clearly laid out. It is quite the miscalculation of Woods, Poels, Quintana, and Van Aert to not have picked up more points the past two days in order to hold off the real possibility of double Pogacar summit finish wins. Van Aert seemed to have bowed out of the competition today in order to support Jumbo teammate Jonas Vingegaard’s Podium position, and Quintana seemed out of energy. Perhaps this was the best Poels and Woods could muscle up, and they just had to hope against a Pogacar loss on the summit finish. But this did not occur, and the excellent war of King of the Mountains succession that has raged much of this Tour puttered-out into mediocrity as a rider who did not even attempt to target the classification would go on to win it after just two big days in the mountains.
Yes, Gaudu and Latour descended down the Tourmalet. As must always be praised when it is spotted: Pierre Latour stuffed newspaper down the front of his jersey to keep his chest warm for the descent. In my eyes this newspaper trick is a last romantic vestige of many eras ago that still holds up even amidst all the new fancy technologically-advanced clothing options. But Latour’s charming ride ended there as he took the descent incredibly slow and was caught by the entire peloton before the bottom. David Gaudu rode strongly and bravely today, O! how he deserved a stage win in this final week of the Tour, O! how he surely would have finished high on the General Classification should he not have been sick to his stomach and lost time on the double ascent of Mont Ventoux. But behind the GC teams were much too close and much too strong. The Ineos Grenadiers did much of the pacing on the front, and shelling of competition out the back as they attempted to set up their GC leader Richard Carapaz the Jaguar of Tulcan, for the stage win in addition to his podium finish. But UAE rode well for their Young Beowulf leader again for the second day in a row. Yes, once more, Rafal Majka was Pogacar’s last man as we all had hoped and expected at the beginning of this season. Majka did a great effort on the front. He brought Pogacar to within 3km of the line. When he swung off, Pogacar attempted to attack again immediately. Only Vingegaard, Carapaz, Movistar’s Enric Mas, and Jumbo’s Sepp Kuss could go with him. When Pogacar could not drop them with the initial attack, he settled back in and let Sepp Kuss take over the pace making for Vingegaard. We waited for a Vingegaard attack, but there were not the flaring-fireworks of yesterday’s summit finish. If we had not been treated to such a show yesterday, we would have been much more towards the edge of our seats today. But today was more controlled and subdued until the final kilometer. Enric Mas put in an attack in attempt for a Spanish stage win—on this Luz Ardiden mountain many Spaniards have gone well—and in an attempt to salvage Movistar’s Tour and season. Sepp Kuss was then dropped, but Pogacar was instantly on Mas. Vingegaard and Carapaz tried to follow, but they could barely and then couldn’t hold Pogacar’s wheel in that final kilometer. Pogacar glided around the final curves of that climb to take another dominate summit finish stage win for the second day in a row. And for a second day in a row, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz were 2nd and 3rd. With the stage win, and with Wout Poels scoring no points on the final climb: Tadej Pogacar moved into the King of the Mountains Polka-Dot Jersey tonight, his KOM score to Wout Poels is now 107 to 88. With only a few Category4 climbs left, each only worth 1 Point, Pogacar’s KOM lead is unassailable…along with this lead in Yellow and White. Barring the majorest of disasters, Tadej Pogacar has now fully sewn up three jerseys of the Tour de France. With that wardrobe reality and the Pyrenees, the final mountain range of this Tour, now conquered, the Tour is now certainly winding down as it traditionally should.
Cycling Odysseys 