Saturday 3rd July 2021
Decision on the tour?
In the Alps, Pogacar humiliates his rivals
The 108th Tour de France seems to have been decided after the first mountain stage. Defending champion Tadej Pogacar drives away from the competition. Primoz Roglic and Geraint Thomas have long since ceased to play a role. Pogacar doesn’t win the stage, but who should stop him now?
Defending champion Tadej Pogacar humiliated his hopeless rivals in the 108th Tour de France on the first mountain stage. 286 days after his triumph in Paris, the Slovenian is wearing the yellow jersey again on his shoulders – the Tour of France is threatened with boredom after the show of power in the Alps. Only the day’s success was denied to the 22-year-old. The eighth stage over 150.8 km from Oyonnax to Le Grand-Bornand won the Belgian Dylan Teuns, it was the second day success in a row for the Bahrain Victorious team.
At the place of the miracle ride of Linus Gerdemann, who climbed the Maillot jaune 14 years ago with the stage victory in Le Grand-Bornand, however, Pogacar towered above who laid the foundation stone for the renewed overall victory as fourth of the day. In view of the dominant performance, only a fall or an unexpected drop in performance seems to be able to prevent the second Tour triumph in a row. Two who were previously treated as Pogacar’s greatest rivals are finally out of the race for the podium: The battered top favorites Primoz Roglic and Geraint Thomas lost touch early on and are no longer competitors. “Attack is the best defense,” said Pogacar, who had already outrun his rivals on the penultimate climb. But there is still a long way to go before the destination in Paris: “A lot can happen.”
The rivals let go early
“It’s a good opportunity to go into a group,” said German climbing specialist Emanuel Buchmann about the stage shortly before the start. Like the previous fourth place on the Tour, many of his competitors thought. The race started accordingly hectic, nervous, fast – and therefore problematic for some. Not only the German Olympic starter Roger Kluge was one of the suspended on the first mountain right after the start. Four-time Tour Champion Chris Froome (Israel Start-up Nation) also got into trouble.
Quite surprisingly, the ex-winner Thomas (Ineos), weakened by a fall, no longer kept up early on. Last year’s second in the tour, Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), who had been battered for days, also briefly fell out of the main field. The pace remained high, attack after attack followed in the pouring rain. A stable racing situation only emerged after the second rated climb of the day (Cote de Menthonnex-en-Bornes, 4th category) after a little over 70 kilometers. A larger group of refugees without Germans left. Behind them, Pogacar had everything under control in the thinned main field.
The field is powerless against Pogacar’s tightening of pace
Buchmann, who is primarily planned to help Dutchman Wilco Kelderman on the tour, ran into problems when the pace increased on the penultimate ascent of Col de Romme (1st category) and lost contact with the group of favorites. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) also had to tear off the yellow jersey shortly afterwards.
Then came the big appearance of Tadej Pogacar: with an impressive appearance, the young star duped all rivals. The Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (Ineos) was able to follow shortly, but was powerless when Pogacar stepped up the pace again. With powerful kicks Pogacar climbed the Col de la Colombiere single-handedly, and on the slippery descent to the finish he remained flawless. But he didn’t catch up with Teuns.
The drivers will be challenged even more intensely on the second and last stage of the Alps on Sunday. First mountain of the highest category, first summit arrival. The difficulties run through the entire stage.
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