Carlos Rodriguez wins in Morzine. The Tour de France is a hard boiled

To this Tour de Franceindeed, for at least a couple of years now, it has happened that what one usually expects from a stage never materializes in the race. Reality often goes beyond imagination, or at least beyond what one can rationally expect.

Towards Morzine the escape could, should have taken place, gained minutes, staged a more or less convinced chase. There was a breakaway, he took an advantage, but never too much, indeed decidedly not enough, despite the fact that there were some top-level riders: from Thibaut Pinot to Giulio Ciccone, from Michael Woods to Mikel Landa, from Daniel Felipe Martinez to Guillaume Martin. However, the yellow jersey team, Jonas Vingegaard, got ahead of the peloton – and calling it a peloton is optimistic – and, right from the start of the fourteenth stage, made things clear: nobody is going anywhere here. The vanguards got just over a minute ahead, enough for Julius Ciccone to pocket a few dozen points for the polka dot shirt, which are not needed today, but who knows maybe they will be good in the future. A continuous series of spurts and accelerations, runners who escaped and returned, who tried to impose their pace and their will. The Jumbo-Visma behind to control, to accelerate and decelerate the pace according to the ambitions of the attackers who tried to reach Morzine before the others.

The American writer Raymond Chandler had ended up in Morzine looking for a good place to forget about alcohol. Not the best choice of France, but so be it. He had stayed there for a few months, the good time to scrape together some money at some conference and write down a couple of screenplays. In Montreux, Switzerland, an hour and a half by car from Morzine, the novelist advised hundreds of young writers who had paid a lot of francs to hear him, “not to try to overturn the narrative rules too much, because a novel is art , but above all a means of entertainment for people. And readers aren’t willing to totally reconsider their narrative experiences.”

Towards Morzine, after having changed the canonical plot of the race at the start of the stage – already upset by a crash that had sent about twenty runners to the ground and made Antonio Pedrero and Louis Meintjes get into the ambulance –, on the Col de la Ramaz and then on the first ramps of the Col de Joux-Plane (there where Marco Pantani performed one of his most beautiful and least predictable feats), the riders, the few who had remained in the first group – very few – returned to the classic canons: Wout van Aert and Sepp Kuss in front and behind all of them.

It couldn’t last long, there was too much at stake and not just the yellow jersey. There was a territory to delimit, a non-physical, psychological territory. Neither of the two, of the usual two, trusts the other. Tadej Pogacar isn’t sure he has more than Jonas Vingegaard. Jonas Vingegaard isn’t sure he has more than Tadej Pogacar.

Raymond Chandler advised that “if the plot is lacking, bring in a man with a rifle”. The man with the shotgun today was played by Tadej Pogacar.

On the Col de Joux-Plane, about three and a half kilometers from the summit, the Slovenian staged his best piece: the sharp stroke on the pedals. He signaled to Adam Yates that it was time to accelerate, then he took care of it. He got up on the pedals, sprinted, in just a few pedal strokes he put meters and meters behind his rival. It seemed like the prelude to the man alone in command, it turned into a ballet for couples. In fact, the yellow jersey remained there, a few tens of meters away, first hanging from the hope that Pogacar really didn’t have more strength than him, then with the certainty that Pogacar really didn’t have more strength than him. Their paths met again, they went up together, fearing a coup d’état from the other. The Slovenian tried it a few hundred meters from the mountain Grand Prix at the top of the Col de Joux-Plane, which gave him a few seconds of bonus. A motorbike stopped him. Jonas Vingegaard preceded him to the top of the col: eight seconds scraped together.

It had to be up to them to win, but the Tour de France is not a mystery novel, there is no assassin, it is a hardboiled and the man with the rifle is never the one who comes out well in the end.

In mutual fear Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, they got lost Carlos Rodríguez. He had been the best – with Adam Yates – behind those two, the usual two. He got confused on the descent, not caring about the judgment of the climb. The arrivals in the valley have the merit of expanding enjoyment, the ability not to make the judgment of the road that goes up entirely decisive. It’s the appeal process. And sometimes that overturns the sentence.

Carlos Rodriguez had the right obstinacy, that of someone who knows that giving up is the first step to remorse. He tried, he risked, he rejoiced in Morzine. He is twenty-two years old, he is in his first Tour de France, he is now in third place in the general classification. He has a boyish face Carlos Rodriguez. His eyes are almost embarrassed by so much attention. He says it’s “amazing” what happened. He almost didn’t believe it, blessed youth. He will have time to stop being surprised, because if you are there, not too far from those two, the usual two, in certain stages – and this was a stage with over four thousand meters in altitude – it means that you have talent and just a lot. And also the ability to suffer.

At last year’s Vuelta Carlos Rodriguez arrived in Madrid seventh after riding several stages wearing bandages. The right temper has already proven to have it.

As he proved he has it Adrian Petit, who arrived in Morzine more than half an hour late, but arrived, despite a gash on the tibia and one under the right buttock. The cut was impressive, it was impressive to see him in the saddle all crooked in an attempt to find a good position to be able to pedal. And there were more than a hundred and forty kilometers to go. A feat to have arrived under the finish line.

Tomorrow there are still Alps to climb, there is an arrival at times steep enough to hurt your legs. And the legs are tired, weighed down by two weeks of fast pedaling and uphill, of sprints and high averages. And no desire to give up on anyone’s part. Or at least not from those two.

Tomorrow there are still Alps to climb and ten seconds to divide Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. Which are few, little more than nothing. And one would want the gap to go down to zero, for there to be two yellow jerseys, a success as a couple. Because in pairs, against each other, they are giving us wonderful afternoons, complex plots and an ending that is still impossible to imagine. It would be nice for the gap to drop to zero, to see them side by side on the top step of the podium in Paris, the one with the Arc de Triomphe behind it at sunset. It won’t be like this, because every race has one and only one winner.

Tour de France 2023, stage 14: the order of arrival and the general classification