Tadej Pogacar has taken the day’s victory on the first prestigious stage of this year’s Tour de France. He triumphed on Tuesday (02.07.24) on the fourth part of the stage over the Col du Galibier. The route ran over 138km from Pinerolo in Italy to Valloire in France.
After a rapid descent from the 2642m high Col du Galibier down to Valloire, the Slovenian won overwhelmingly ahead of the Belgian Remco Evenepoel and the Spaniard Juan Ayuso. Pogacar’s compatriot Primoz Roglic came fourth, Jonas Vingegaard, who could not follow Pogacar on the Galibier, came in fifth.
The previous wearer of the yellow jersey, Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, lost more than four minutes to his top rivals on the climb up the Galibier. Pogacar is the new wearer of the coveted jersey of the overall leader.
Pogacar: “Dream stage for me”
“I’m super happy, that was the plan and we executed it well. It was a dream stage for me. I wanted to hit hard today, I trained a lot for that,” said Pogacar and announced further attacks: “I’m extremely motivated to continue on this path.”
While Pogacar celebrated his twelfth stage win in the Tour, Vingegaard showed in the first real endurance test after his serious fall in the Tour of the Basque Country that he is not yet back to 100 percent – but at least he managed to limit the damage.
Pogacar’s irresistible start on the Galibier
In the battle for overall victory, two-time champion Pogacar appears to have the best cards, leading the overall standings by 45 seconds ahead of Evenepoel, Vingegaard (+50 seconds) is third. Carapaz fell far behind.
With the help of his brutally strong UAE team, led by Nils Politt from Cologne, who set an incredible pace for many kilometers on the approach, Pogacar wore down the opposition on the not-too-steep but endlessly long descent to the Galibier, which was around 23 km long. The captain only had to take action himself shortly before the summit, and his attack was successful.
A taste of further Alpine tests
On returning to the Tour’s homeland of France after three days on Italian soil, the impressive combination of Lautaret (2061 m) and Galibier, who was 600 m higher, brought the decision, as expected. The latter had often written Tour history and shattered dreams.
As spectacular as the stage was, it was only a foretaste of the second and larger part of the Alpine climb. In the last week, the Tour returns to the region on the way to the final venue in Nice, then there are four more mountain stages. That still seems a long way off – on Tuesday, the stage will belong to the sprinters again in Saint-Vulbas.
Special classifications Jersey Name Dotted (Mountain) Jonas Abrahamsen (Norway) 24 points Green (Sprint) Jonas Abrahamsen (Norway) 87 points White (Juniors) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) 19:07:23 hrs Golden number (most combative rider) Oier Lazkano (Spain)
