On the return from Hautacam, in the valley, promised, sworn: at the first cross church, we will stop to reflect. There are days when it is better to be a believer. The best way to turn a blind eye to certain performances. The flight of the green jersey Wout van Aert to launch his yellow-clad teammate Jonas Vingegaard to victory, and let go in the final Tadej Pogacar, is a blow to make the most fervent doubt. At the very top, those who had already monopolized the Tour did one, two, three, like the three little pigs making fun of the big bad wolf.
So, you might as well believe by signing yourself blandly, just to help the other couriers to complete this supercharged edition. That same morning, taking the Col de Spandelles, unprecedented on the Tour, we had been seduced by the beauty of the gravelled municipal road and its charming narrowness, winding between the small streams to, once, hunt the pigeon. But we had not been fooled by the sign hung on the wall of a farm, wishing the “welcome to our paradise”. For the cyclists engaged in their last Pyrenean stage, it looked like a green hell, between the difficulty of this unknown climb, perfect for blowing up the favorites, and the dangerousness of the descent, ideal for falling.
Emotion, doves and Netflix moment
It did not fail. While Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) replayed their usual duo – the first attacking, the second returning like Captain Haddock’s band-aid, the others going to pick daisies – everything almost changed. In a bend, the Slovenian lost control of his bike and fell heavily. A kindness-inducing departure from Lourdes, the Dane waited for him to return. They shook hands. Emotion. Doves flying away. Netflix time. Applause.
This true act of piety took them out of the race a little and allowed their competitors to come back. Miracle ? No, part postponed. In the last pass, the greedy Hautacam, more than 13 kilometers with almost 8% average slope, they quickly distanced themselves again from the applicants, who have, for a long time, only the roles of extras. They are fighting for places of honor away from the cameras and in this little game, the Frenchman David Gaudu should finish fourth in the Tour.
“If tomorrow they tell me I have to do the same again, I stop”
You have to really love cycling to inflict, after almost three weeks of racing, a series of peaks such as Aubisque, Spandelles, Hautacam. Leaving Lourdes, the most worried may have lit one or two candles at Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire and kissed the feet of the nuns they crossed for luck. Unless they waited on the slopes of Aubisque for the blessing of a not very Catholic Pope. The most political will have preferred that of Emmanuel Macron himself, the president being on a tour of tightening paws in the area, to seduce pedallers and goat breeders. Not enough, on arrival, to reassure the little hands of the peloton, bloodless. Frenchman Benoît Cosnefroy, who arrived 32 minutes from the winner: “It was a dog step.” His compatriot Adrien Petit, in stride: “It was terrible. If tomorrow I am told I have to do the same again, I stop.
The Pyrenean passes are more wooded and green than those crossed in the Alps. More cunning, too. They keep runners in the dark about their toughness for a long time. The Galibier does not lie. Bald from the first meters, he announces the color, the rocks as the only buoys and the turns that will never end. In the Hautes-Pyrénées, it is tempting to indulge in the reverie of the first kilometers of Aubisque, almost in the freshness, friendly thermal road built by the Empress Eugénie.
The peloton deciding not to open hostilities immediately, this gave the follower time to remember with certain emotion the triumph in these places (and under the whistles of the crowd) of Michael Rasmussen in 2007, Danish dynamiter and doped . The same evening, when he had won the Tour, he was fired by his Rabobank team for evading doping controls.
Return to the crime scene
We joke with the Aubisque, but it is difficult to have a more sulphurous reputation than the rise of Hautacam. It is not so much for its name, which is frightening, especially repeated in a deaf breath by the shepherds at night to scare the children, nor for its climb, painful and irregular. The place is unfavorably known to the doping control services for being one of the peaks where, historically, the most tricksters blow up all the times.
In 2000, Armstrong put Pantani, Virenque, Escartin in his pocket there, in the pouring rain. In 2008, Piepoli and Cobo Acebo crossed the finish line hand in hand, while their teammate Ricco, known as “the Cobra”, entertained the crowd. Their performances required having an absolute once in the Holy Spirit. All three were sponsored by Saunier Duval, a brand of boilers. In 2014, the Italian Nibali attacked from 10 kilometers away and we never saw him again. Fortunately, his time (37′20) remained far from that of the over-oxygenated Bjarne Riis, 34′40, in 1996.
Jonas Vingegaard, of whom one would dare not write that he wanted to pay homage to his glorious predecessors – told him that it was «pour [sa] wife and daughter», therefore also escaped, three kilometers from the finish, his face white and emaciated like a Christian martyr. Suffice to say that the follower was curious about his ascent time. Verdict? Around 36′45, according to the first estimates. Not bad. This victory and the minute taken from a Tadej Pogacar with a grated thigh offer him the general classification in Paris on Sunday (barring a disaster) and, in addition to the yellow, the polka dot jersey. Praised be the new lord of the Tour?