Evenepoel, Pogacar, Roglic and Vingegaard… The fantastic 4 shine in the first time trial of the Tour

Belgian Remco Evenepoel won the seventh stage of the Tour de France on Friday, a first 25km time trial. Slovenian Tadej Pogacar retained the yellow jersey, while Primoz Roglic placed third. Jonas Vingegaard finished fourth, 37 seconds behind the winner.

Published on: 05/07/2024 – 18:16

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Remco Evenepoel won the seventh stage of the Tour de France, a 25 km time trial, on Friday July 5 in Gevrey-Chambertin, where Tadej Pogacar retained the yellow jersey.

The Belgian, world champion in the exercise, finished twelve seconds ahead of the Slovenian, who maintains a 33-second lead in the general classification. The Slovenian Primoz Roglic finished third in the time trial, 34 seconds behind the winner, just ahead of the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, who finished 37 seconds behind Evenepoel.

Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin took a magnificent sixth place, just 52 seconds behind Evenepoel.

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First victory

This is the Belgian prodigy’s first victory in the Tour de France, which he is racing for the first time this year. “I’m super happy, I was having a good day. I enjoyed every metre of this time trial,” said the 24-year-old Flemish.

He won despite a scare less than three kilometres from the finish when he thought he had a puncture before setting off again after a short acrobatic jump to test his equipment.

“I was convinced I had a flat tire, maybe someone had thrown a glass,” he said. “I then saw that there was no problem, I just had to keep driving. It scared me a little bit, I was disturbed.”

By finishing in the first four places, the “fantastic four” all held their own in this time trial on a very fast 25-kilometre course in the Burgundy vineyards, which was a decisive meeting to judge their state of form.

Pogacar was, as expected, very good, and Vingegaard, a two-time defending winner, defended admirably well despite only just returning to competition.

“I think Tadej will be untouchable,” Evenepoel said, “but that’s racing, you never know what can happen. The more the race goes on, the better I feel. Of course we’ll think about the podium, I think I have the legs for that.”

With AFP