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Imperious Pogačar underscores Tour dominance with second consecutive mountain top triumph

Slovenian also wins the King of the Mountains

July 15, 2021
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On the 2021 Tour de France’s last mountain day, race leader Tadej Pogačar underscored his dominance by winning his second straight summit finish and third stage of the race. The top three were exactly the same as on Wednesday’s stage atop the Col de Portet, with race revelation Jonas Vingegaard second and Richard Carapaz third. Rigoberto Uran, who fell from his podium position on Wednesday, had another bad day, dropping from fourth to tenth. Michael Woods couldn’t overtake Wout Poels in the mountains classification, but neither could Poels prevent Pogačar from winning that too.

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The Course

After two amuse bouche Cat. 4’s early in the 129.7 km route, there were two main HC courses: the fearsome Tourmalet, 17 km of 7.4 percent, and Luz Ardiden, 13.4 km of 7.5 percent. Bon appetit!

Some worries for Bahrain-Victorious

A few surges early in the day came to nothing before Julian Alaphilippe and four others got loose. Although Bahrain-Victorious had a rider in the break in Stage 7 winner Matej Mohorič, the team rode hard on the front of the peloton. The team was possibly disoriented by the police raid on Bahrain-Victorious‘ hotel rooms and bus.

Green jersey interlude

On the second Cat. 4 climb, BikeExchange tried to lope off the front of the peloton with a mind to deliver Michael Matthews to the intermediate sprint soon after. The Australian outfit couldn’t create a separate chase, but it brought the fugitives closer before the intermediate sprint. Green jersey Mark Cavendish crossed the line ahead of Matthews anyway.

Tourmalet

Pogla’s UAE-Emirates grabbed the reins on the road to Tourmalet. Alaphilippe and Mohorič were on their own at its foot, 1:24 ahead of the field. A couple of chase groups flared out from the peloton and then merged before grabbing the leading duo with 6 km to climb. Ineos took over from UAE and ratcheted up the pace.

Heading into the last 4 km the leading group was down to Alaphilippe, David Gaudu, Pierre Latour and Ruben Guerreiro, but Gaudu’s speed soon spat out Alaphilippe.

Fourth place Uran cracked. Woods decided to attack from the peloton to sop up some KOM points, Poels going with him.

Woods and Poels light out for KOM points on the Tourmalet.

Thirty seconds after Gaudu, Poels beat Woods to the line at the top of Tourmalet. Sixteen points behind, Woods’ KOM bid was over.

Luz Ardiden

Gaudu left Latour on the descent of Tourmalet.

The French race leader only had a 15-second gap as he started up Luz Ardiden, the final non-Cat. 4 climb of the 2021 Tour de France. Ineos continued to push the speed. Woods fell off the bunch early. Gaudu was caught.

With 5.5 km remaining, Pogačar’s teammate Rafal Majka took over the front, cracking eighth place Alexey Lutsenko and Gaudu.

Pogačar made his move with 3.2 km to climb. Carapaz, Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss and Enric Mas clung onto the Slovenian before Kuss pulled the quintet.

Mas surged just as the five riders reached the red kite. The yellow jersey sewed it up. Kuss fell away. Mas then flew the coop with 700 metres to go. Once more the Slovenian found the Spaniard and this time dispatched the others.

As on Wednesday, Vingegaard was runner up and Carapaz third. Mas, fifth place in both the Tour de France and Vuelta a España last year, moved up over Lutsenko into sixth.

The GC battle takes a day off before the long time trial.


2021 Tour de France Stage 18
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 3:33:45
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma) +0:02
3) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) s.t.
41) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +8:58

2021 Tour de France GC
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 75:00:02
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma) +5:45
3) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) +5:51
4) Ben O’Connor (Australia/AG2R-Citroën) +8:18
5) Wilco Kelderman (The Netherlands/Bora-Hansgrohe) +8:50
6) Enric Mas (Spain/Movistar) +10:11
7) Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan/Astana-Premier Tech) +11:22
8) Guillaume Martin (France/Cofidis) +11:56
9) Pello Bilbao (Spain/Bahrain-Victorious) +13:48
8) Rigoberto Uran (Colombia/EF Education-Nippo) +16:25
27) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel Start-up Nation) +1:25:37