Tour de France. Pogacar said no

It was – probably – from the second stage, the one that ended in Donostia, that Tadej Pogacar wanted to say no to Jonas Vingegaard. He had received three in two days from the Dane. The request was always the same: pull a little. Also the answer: no. Said aloud twice, once with a shake of the head. On top of Col du Tourmaletpenultimate climb of the day, forty-seven kilometers from the finish, Jonas Vingegaard turned around and asked Tadej Pogacar to collaborate. The Slovenian answered no. Then she smiled. Pogacar often smiles, for him pedaling is fun. The Dane is more serious, less expansive, his Basque nos were dry and without appeal. Those of Pogacar less so, but he still didn’t give them a change. At the top of the Tourmalet the two, the usual two, were alone. They had already disconnected everyone, especially Jay Hindley, who yesterday, in the first Pyrenean stage, had staged the revolt, a revolt that he was unable to repeat today. Not even a complete resistance succeeded. If Paganini doesn’t repeat, neither does Hindley, but in this case in spite of him. He would have liked to have done it willingly, it didn’t go the way he wanted. And yes, he was behind those two, the usual two, when Wilko Kelderman had extinguished the hopes of so many. But then Sepp Kuss arrived. And the American is a pedal tumbler, he separates bran and flour, Vingegaard from all the others. The exception is Tadej Pogacar. On the Col du Marie Blanque the Dane had done it himself and lost it along the way, on the Col du Tourmalet he tried again, but the Slovenian didn’t lose a meter uphill.

And not even on the road that led, uphill, towards Cauterets-Cambasque, Pogacar did not lose a meter. Always behind the Dane, always calm, while the other one got nervous because he couldn’t shake him off. Vingegaard was well used to it.

Then Tadej Pogacar got up on the pedals, took off, was left alone. He continued alone and in solitude he reached the finish line. The Slovenian wanted to show the other one that what happened towards Laruns had been a false step and that was all, that he hadn’t lied when he had said that his legs had been missing for a kilometer and only a kilometre. Today never equals yesterday, say the wise men. And the stopwatch too: yesterday it was sixty-four seconds lost, today twenty-four gained. However, arithmetic in cycling is never linear, the seconds have their own specific weight and are not always the same. Jonas Vingegaard is now 25 seconds ahead of Tadej Pogacar, above all he has the yellow jersey back on his shoulders. He can be happy, even if with a little less willpower. The certainties are the same though. And there are three of them: he has legs that turn well, he has the strongest team, Wout van Aert is still in the group and, despite what they say about their not exceptional relationships, his team does it and he knows how to do it great .

Wout van Aert is above all always ahead of the pack. Of the 144.9 kilometers pedaled today, he must have spent at least half getting wind in his face. First to give strength and space to today’s escape that he himself had created, then to not let it wreck on the first ascent, the Col d’Aspin – after the hard work on the plain that Kasper Asgren had done to encourage Julian Alaphilippe’s desire for victory –, finally to launch his teammate Jonas Vingegaard towards the finish line. Everything went well apart from the ending, but Wout van Aert can do nothing about it.

Wout van Aert never spares himself, his cycling is avant-garde, remoteness and wonderful reckless lucidity. They say he is wrong to run like this, because if he ran differently he would probably win more. Can be. However, there is no counter-proof, there never is in sport and not only in sport. Maybe, but maybe not, above all it doesn’t matter because just seeing him race is a good reason to see the Tour de France. Six stages were raced in this Grande Boucle, Wout van Aert was the only one who was always protagonist. Hasn’t he won yet? We’ll figure it out. Tomorrow we’ll get to the sprint, he’ll be a great performer there too.

Tomorrow we will set off again waiting for a sprint, we will pedal more easily and faster through the roads of the Garonne, on calmer seabeds, fleeing from memories of the mountains while waiting for others. Half the group will try to escape from the feeling of a sad near future, made up of chases that will never lead to a hookup. At least not to those two, the usual two.

Jay Hindley will restart with 1’34” on the rump; Adam Yates is fourth at 3’14”, Sepp Kuss tenth at 5’28”, there are only twenty riders under ten minutes. Mattia Skjelmose lost over seven minutes today, Giulio Ciccone over ten. Michael Woods over twenty-three. All three could have been among the ten in the general classification. That’s not to say they can’t do it. It will take a lot of imagination though.

Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar have always gotten rid of everyone through a third party – and always Kuss –, then they bickered among themselves. And in order not to become just a distant backdrop behind their backs, they will have to invent something, set off on an adventure that is lunchtime, do the best possible. Tobias Halland Johannessen today he did a general test to understand how to continue his Tour de France. And he seems to have found a good way. The Norwegian is strong and going strong. Uphill he is one of those who know how to make the pedals turn well, fast and for a long time. Today he understood that he is not that far from the best of the group, or at least those less distant from those two, the usual two.

The 6th stage of the Tour de France: the order of arrival and the general classification