Tadej Pogacar once again dominated in the 19th stage of the Tour, attacking and ‘catching’ all the breakaways in the final kilometers, to achieve his 4th victory in one of the hardest stages of this edition. “What can I say… it was the queen stage of this Tour,” began the Slovenian. “Now I can confirm that the Bonette is really a very scary climb. In training, it’s nice because you can skip the last kilometer, but in a race… But I am super happy to have had good legs,” said the race leader about the ascent to the Cime de La Bonette, the highest climb ever used in the Tour de France, at 2800 meters.
“Between the Giro and the Tour I trained here for a month. It was a tough period. There were no easy days because you had to keep climbing. So, I knew the climb very well. During the stages, I had already discussed with my teammates how we wanted to race today, and we did it exactly as we had agreed. It went perfectly,” he explained regarding the difficulties overcome during the stage, where he anticipated movements from Jonas Vingegaard.
“Initially, I thought Jonas would try there. But we saw that they [Visma] were also going very fast in the breakaway [Visma had two men escaped], so I think their main objective was stage victory. But I ended up with it,” the Slovenian joked.
Joking aside, Pogacar acknowledged the toughness of Friday’s stage, where he had to go to the “limit” to surpass Matteo Jorgenson, one of the Visma riders, near the finish line. “I was a little empty in the last two kilometers. When I caught Carapaz and Simon Yates, I was already at my limit. But when I saw that Matteo was also losing some ground, I continued. He was very strong today. I tip my hat to Matteo and all those in the breakaway. They were very strong,” he emphasized.
With two days left in the race, the Emirates leader now has a 5-minute lead over Vingegaard, getting closer to being crowned for the 3rd time in his career. “I am very happy with my margin. Tomorrow I can just enjoy the stage. We’ll let a leading group go by. We’ll enjoy the roads where I trained for the Tour and where I have trained for almost my entire career,” he stated.
R.B.