the record parameters at the Tour, better than Pantani and Armstrong- Corriere.it

If cycling performances were measurable and classifiable like those of athletics, yesterday on the Col du Tourmalet (and Wednesday climbing the Marie-Blanque) Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar they would have crushed two world records. In the attacks that revolutionized the stages and classification of the Tour de France number 110, Vingegaard and yesterday also from Pogacar for about 20′ are the best ever: just under 2,000 metres/hour and around 7 W/kg. Neither Pantani, nor the dopatissimo Armstrong, nor Contador had managed to do so much in their exploits.

In the absence of certain chronometric results, the quality of uphill performance in cycling is measured with two universally recognized parameters: theat medium climbing speed with which an athlete climbs a peak or part of it (metres/hour) and the power released on the pedals per kilo of body weight of the athlete. Merit of ever more performing bikes, extreme thinness, hyper specialized training, followers capable of sustaining very high rhythms and therefore of trailing even uphill for very long times.
In the alpine stages we will see if Jonas & Tadej will be able to compete with the values ​​of Pantani and associates even on long climbs, where the limit is about 1700 m/hour for just under 40′.

Unlike the illustrious predecessors who went wild in the final ascents, i winners of the last three Tours (like Kenyan marathon runners) are able to do it anywhere along the way, even far from the finish line and for several consecutive days. Under the motto of the day’s goal was to test Tadej to see if he would break away again, yesterday Vingegaard launched a furious attack 50 kilometers from the finish and five from the summit of a Tourmalet which under the pedal strokes of the two looked more like a hill than the legendary mountain discovered by Henri Desgrange.

Pogacar reacted

The test failed, Tadej did not break away, but the rest of the group immediately appeared blurred even in the eyes of Emmanuel Macron, a guest in the race director’s car, enraptured by the show. Hindley’s yellow jersey seemed tailored to a willing amateur, the Yates twins, two amateur cyclists, the great Bernal and the aggressive Ciccone, other category riders who, like all of them, gave up from two to four minutes in the key quarter of an hour a stage that started with the vehemence of a track pursuit test, with Van Aert and Alaphilippe sprinting onto the white line at 50 km/h and the group in asphyxiation.

In the challenge between Martians, as well as any logical tactic, opponents and followers have disappeared. Vingegaard only found Van Aert on the descent (the Jumbo’s tactic continues to cause discussion: everyone attacks at any moment) and the Belgian dragged him onto Cauterets until he completely ran out of energy. And just at the moment in which the knockout blow of the Danish against the Slovenian was expected, 2.5 kilometers from the finish line, Pogacar launched a counterattack while Vingegaard’s haggard and very pale face contracted in a pained grimace.

All the baleful theories of the eve have dissolved: Pogacar is not the stunt double of the relentless one of 2021, he’s not paying for the distance from the races for a broken wrist and above all he hasn’t given up. And he hasn’t even lost his taste for sincerity and irony: When Jonas started on the Tourmalet I thought: m situation …, here I’ll end up disconnected again, tonight I’ll pack up and go home. But I soon realized that his leg was different. Pogacar won the stage (the tenth in four Tours) with a 24″ lead (plus 4″ bonus) and is now only 25″ behind Vingegaard who took the yellow jersey. The rest of the world participates in a different Tour: Hindley 3 at 1’34”, Simon Yates, 4, loses 3’14”, Landa down at 6′, Ciccone crashed at almost 11′ (he was third, battling for a victory by stage) what remains of poor Bernal at almost 13′. All this after only six stages: Fabio Jakobsen, who crossed the finish line 37′ after the winner and four before the time limit struck, collapsed on the barriers crying bitterly. In a mad Tour, the pure sprinters suffer most of all the consequences of killer rhythms.

Now there are two stages to recover, to return to a more reassuring routine of sunflowers and rows of vines: tomorrow total flatness towards Bordeaux, Saturday only a few hills towards Limoges. But on Sunday here is yet another trap of a Tour designed by a good mystery writer thanks to the arrival on the mythological Puy de Dme which had been missing for 35 years with its vertical finale where the echoes of the battles of Coppi, Poulidor, Anquetil, Merckx and Lemond and where the challenge between their heirs cannot fail to repeat itself.