2023-07-06 18:59:33
Coming out of the first massif crossed by the Great Loop, the two favorites are already moving at a different altitude than the rest of the runners. Far behind them, we already seem to be fighting for third place.
In the Pyrenees, we saw a bear, a real one. He’s all skinny, lacks a tan, wears yellow and black lycra, and is fiercer than a hungry grizzly bear. In two days, he wanted to push aside his adversaries with a stroke of his paw, like vulgar salmon, making his honey from their failure. But he found in front of him a white wolf refusing the history already written.
It started on Wednesday, between Pau and Laruns. In the fog of the Marie Blanque pass, Jonas Vingegaard of the Jumbo-Visma left like a dancer, dropping everyone and especially his main opponent Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Emirates). It was not the Slovenian who was in bad shape, he beat the time of his previous appearance in 2020 by 50 seconds. But the Dane, who has pedals of seven leagues, broke the record for this ascent by one minute and a half, probably after filling his gourd with holy water in Lourdes, the nearby devout city.
This Thursday, while little Gaspard was looking for his grandpa, while the nursing homes had taken out their long tables along the road to install their residents, while Gascon singers made bewitching peasant tunes resonate on the finish line, while a Obélix offered us a glass of whiskey and a man disguised in a condom ran happily towards his comrades, we thought the same scenario was going to happen again.
Jonas Vingegaard size pattern
In the very long ascent of the Tourmalet, which leaves plenty of time to think about life, death, picking blueberries and this little farm there, which we would like to buy back, lost in the clearing at the edge of the forest, Jonas Vingegaard had had enough of the hum of the peloton. He asked his teammates to speed up, the humans behind closed up shop and he found himself alone with Tadej Pogacar.
800 meters from the summit, the two men met Julian Alaphilippe, who left in the morning breakaway. The Frenchman didn’t even try to hang on. They passed by him, without a glance, as if they were passing a bedridden man. The difference in pace was phenomenal, the same image broadcast simultaneously at two different speeds.
Jonas Vingegaard, 26, dreams of being the omnipotent boss of the Tour. Last year, even though he won, it still wasn’t. Most of the couriers were still wondering what the guy almost out of nowhere had in his stomach. The former employee in a fish cannery first took control of his team, Jumbo-Visma. The solid Wout van Aert barked in displeasure, wanting to keep his freedom, but he finally accepted it. This Thursday, the Belgian puncher put himself totally at the service of the Dane, starting at the front as a scout then towing him in the first kilometers of the last ascent once resumed.
Tadej Pogacar in ambush
At 5 km, the siren sounded, the sign indicating the plateau of Cambasque appeared. Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar have found themselves as a couple again, a situation that we are likely to see often over the next two weeks.
Suddenly, when he had never taken any relay, Tadej Pogacar emerged from a smoke bomb like a western dancer jumping from a birthday cake. The yellow and black bear looked surprised and failed to follow. On the finish line, the rain started to fall and the Dane, livid, lost 24 seconds.
He still gets the yellow jersey. Pogacar is in ambush in the general classification. The duel so announced before the event will take place. The peloton of humans, the Hindleys, Rodriguez, Gaudu, are now far behind with 15 stages left. They will embark on a parallel competition, that for third place.
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