The 2021 Tour de France podium fight is a great one

Going into the 108th Tour de France’s final week, there’s still a lot to fight for, but the yellow jersey competition is probably locked up. That’s been the reality since the end of the first week, something that has perhaps taken a little luster off the race. But it’s still play on. Mark Cavendish is looking to own the most Tour stage win record outright. Michael Woods is still right in the polka dot jersey competition—his scrap with Wout Poels has been a good one. But perhaps the most intriguing is the battle for the podium, with four riders vying for the two steps below Tadej Pogačar.

Here’s the GC top-10 situation with six stages remaining:

1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 56:50:21
2) Rigoberto Uran (Colombia/EF Education-Nippo) +5:18
3) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma) +5:32
4) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/Ineos Grenadiers) +5:33
5) Ben O’Connor (Australia/AG2R-Citroën) +5:58
6) Wilco Kelderman (The Netherlands/Bora-Hansgrohe) +6:16
7) Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan/Astana-Premier Tech) +7:01
8) Enric Mas (Spain/Movistar) +7:11
9) Guillaume Martin (France/Cofidis) +7:58
10) Pello Bilbao (Spain/Bahrain-Victorious) +10:59

The composition of the top-10 isn’t quite set in stone—more on that below—but there’s nearly a seven-minute gap from 11th to 12th. There’s still a week ahead for meltdowns, the kind that have jettisoned Pierre Latour and David Gaudu from the upper reaches of the table, but it’s likely that Pogacar, Uran, Vingegaard, Carapaz, O’Connor, Kelderman, Lutsenko, Mas and Martin will make up the top-10 in some sequence on Sunday in Paris.

The time gaps from Pogacar to Uran (+5:18), Vingegaard (+5:32) and Carapaz (+5:33) have remained the same since Stage 9 to Tignes when O’Connor’s victory rocketed him up the classification from 13th to 2nd. That is, after a Week 2 in which the riders faced a stage with double ascent of Ventoux, a day in the Pyrenees foothills and then a romp through the Andorran Pyrenees, the current top-4 haven’t made any gains on or suffered any losses to each another.

O’Connor immediately bounced down to fifth the next time there was GC skirmishing on Stage 11, similar to how Guillaume Martin held second place for 24 hours between the end of Stage 14 and the finale of Stage 15. But even if O’Connor and Martin don’t rise in the top-10 again—the Australian (+5:58) can still podium—they’ve had wonderful Tours, with Martin likely to score the unofficial top Frenchman title and first Grand Tour top-10 and O’Connor revealing that he’s a worthy Grand Tour successor to Romain Bardet at AG2R-Citroën.

Carapaz has to find a way to crack the Colombian and the Dane before the time trial. In Chrono 1, Vingegaard came in third, 41 seconds faster than Uran and 1:17 better than Carapaz. Uran, in turn, was 36 seconds quicker than the Ecuadorian. If Uran hangs onto the podium, it’ll be his second Tour podium and fourth Grand Tour podium. If Carapaz can make it he’ll have podiums in all three Grand Tours, including his Giro d’Italia triumph, and his second in a row.

If Vingegaard can hold his step, Jumbo-Visma would consider the Tour to be a huge success, even with the withdrawal of Primož Roglič and the crash outs of Robert Gesink and Tony Martin. Not only would the squad have at least two stage wins, it would also reveal its depth of strength, the kind you need to square off with the Ineos Grenadiers. Three consecutive Tour podiums with three different riders? Not too shabby.

Finally, there’s an intriguing battle at the bottom of the top-10 between Bahrain-Victorious’ Pello Bilbao and Deceuninck-Quick Step’s 11th-place Mattia Cattaneo. Bilbao entered the top-10 after David Gaudu’s jour sans on Stage 11 with a 5:00+ buffer on Cattaneo. While Martin was using the breakaway to storm to second place on Stage 14, Cattaneo was using the same means to move past Bilbao. The next day, Bilbao took 10th place back and leads the Italian by 3:46. Like Carapaz having to put some daylight between himself and Uran and Vingegaard before the long time trial, the Spaniard will want some space between him and Cattaneo, who has eighth in the first chrono. Bilbao has make two Grand Tour top-10s, while Cattaneo hasn’t had any.