While Tadej Pogačar was on the podium accepting his 17th yellow jersey of this year’s Tour de France, there were still riders crawling up to the summit of Isola 2000. The UAE Team Emirates rider crossed the line 55 minutes before the final finisher of stage 19: Arnaud Démare of Arkéa-B&B Hotels who had struggled in front of the broom wagon all day and ended up finishing outside of the time limit. The Frenchman crossed the line broken and emotional, eliminated from his home country’s biggest race in the cruellest way. Pogačar, on the other hand, was smiling and breezy when he finished, a bolt of yellow emerging from the backdrop of overcast mountains. Démare being forced to leave the race is a product of how quickly the yellow jersey wearer finished the queen stage. It’s not that he means to, but Pogačar keeps breaking hearts at the Tour de France.
The sweat stained kit and pained expressions when riders crossed the finish line said it all: the strength that UAE Team Emirates are exhibiting in this race is making things very difficult for everyone else. For the entire stage, the team in red and white set a blistering pace to limit the gap to the breakaway and set-up Pogačar for –another – eventual victory. At the bottom of Isola 2000, the breakaway still had a gap of almost four minutes on the GC group. Under normal circumstances, that might have been enough for them to contest the stage win. Right now, however, Pogačar isn’t doing normal things.
“It’s incredible. There’s not much more to say. It’s incredible. Unreal,” Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers commented after the stage. The Welshman, like Pogačar, has ridden both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France this year. While his 25-year-old colleague rips up mountains and destroys the competition, Thomas is simply struggling to make it to Nice in order to complete his second Grand Tour of the season.
“I’ve never raced against someone like Pogačar. There’s no question. We all knew he was good but this year he’s gone up another level again. It’s unreal what he’s doing so hats off to him,” Thomas continued.
Perhaps from a fan perspective, the place where Pogačar’s dominance has been most felt in this Tour de France is in the general classification battle. It was clear on the final climb of stage 18 that the Slovenian rider’s long-time rival, Jonas Vingegaard, has changed his mindset. Rather than trying to win the Tour, he’s resigned to protecting his second place. Yellow now seems impossible to everyone else.
“Tomorrow will be the same for me, I will try to follow Remco [Evenepoel] and focus more on that. I know I said before that I wanted to race for victory, but when you have the legs that I have you have to settle,” Vingegaard admitted after the race. His teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, had also been impacted by Pogačar’s imperious strength today after he was caught on the final slopes of Isola 2000 after a day in the breakaway.
“I'm disappointed. At this level, the win is what matters, and I feel like I put a lot into this sport and I'm really close in the Tour many times now,” the American rider said after the finish. “Today it felt like I had it within my grasp. It just slipped away. I heard Pogačar was coming. I just did the best effort I had in my legs. I was hoping that Pogačar would go more conservative. I knew within three and a half, four minutes that it was going to be really tight, but I just didn't have enough in my legs.”
But for all the misery that Pogačar is causing in this race, the positive impact of his performances can’t be ignored. According to his teammates, Pogačar is motivating them – and the rest of the peloton – to simply be better. They need to be able to match him so, in turn, the entire level of bike racing will be dragged upwards.
“With Tadej it’s easy, it motivates me a lot to have him in my team and he’s such a nice person so then you also give, as a helper, one hundred and ten percent,” Nils Politt said (the German rider had done some important work for Pogačar earlier in the stage).
“I think he wanted to get what happened last year out of his head and this year he showed he is an amazing bike rider, the best in the world.”
João Almeida shared a similar sentiment to his teammate: “Tadej is in his best shape ever. He’s incredible. It’s unbelievable how strong he is. Personally, I’m super happy to be part of this. In the end it’s like history, so I’m proud of it.”
As for Pogačar himself, he is not unaware of the impact his performances are having on the sport. Whether this sort of supremacy from one rider is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion (likely shaped by how much you struggled up the mountain today if you’re in the peloton), but there’s no doubt that this season we are witnessing history in his performances. The impact of them will be felt for years to come.
“I think in every sport teams push each other to be greater. And when there is a rivalry you always want to be better than each other,” Pogačar stated in his post-race press conference. “This really is a golden era of cycling. Myself, I'm enjoying these battles between each other. It's super exciting cycling.”
