in Courchevel, Vingegaard imposes, Pogacar implodes – Liberation

The Danish yellow jersey has definitely pushed Tadej Pogacar out of his way. Victim of a failure in the Col de la Loze, the Slovenian is more than six minutes behind the outgoing winner. Austrian Felix Gall won the queen stage of the Tour.

Killer slopes dotted with isolated riders, battling with their bikes, each with their own objective: to grab a place in the general classification, to snatch the stage victory, to limit the damage. And, five kilometers from the summit of the Col de la Loze and its 2,304 meters of altitude, a yellow jersey which decides to leave, catching up with the lost sheep one after the other. 24 hours after his demonstration during the Combloux time trial, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard has definitively crushed the Tour de France 2023. Without even seeming to want to, at the start anyway. His runner-up, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), surrendered eight kilometers from the summit, marked by a fall at the start of the stage and waited for his teammate Marc Soler, who even seemed to be going too fast for him.

Jonas Vingegaard, 26, then asked his teammates to up the pace. And the Dutch machine performed: Sepp Kuss, Tiesj Benoot, Wilco Kelderman, in turn, towed the yellow jersey, before letting him manage like a grown-up to seal his second consecutive Tour de France, barring an accident. here the parade on the Champs-Elysées, Sunday. Vingegaard will not push the demonstration to catch up with the last survivors of the escape of the day, including the Austrian Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën), who will impose himself at the top of the altiport of Courchevel. But in the general classification, before the Vosges stage on Saturday, the gaps are huge. Pogacar is more than seven minutes behind the Dane, he who 48 hours ago had only … 10 seconds of disbursements. The third, Adam Yates is almost 11 minutes away. As for the first Frenchman (10th overall), David Gaudu, he sails at 18 minutes.

The river breakaway of this Wednesday July 19, composed of outsiders for the top 10 of the general classification (David Gaudu, Simon Yates, Pello Bilbao, Felix Gall), often accompanied by teammates, had however never succeeded in making its advantage beyond four minutes. We did not give much of his chances of success, but in the peloton, the workforce was hardly more valiant, especially on the side of Tadej Pogacar, who had nevertheless announced the day before that he had a “plan”. And as the Jumbo-Visma decided to play it piano, the fugitives managed to keep a mattress of more than two minutes when approaching the most murderous slopes of the Col de la Loze. It was then that the Austrian Felix Gall isolated himself, keeping until the finish a nest egg of a few seconds on Simon Yates (Jayco Alula).