Tadej Pogacar prevails again on stage 15 and might have Maillot Jaune wrapped up after massive time gap to Jonas Vingegaard at 2024 Tour de France
Cycling
Another summit finish at the 2024 Tour de France and yet again, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar came to the fore on stage 15. On this occasion it was Pogacar who prevailed and with a massive time gap, the Slovenian may have just won the Tour.
The racing was quickly turned fierce early on stage 15 as an infernal fight for the breakaway took place. In the end, a group of around 20 riders went clear. Among them were sprinters Biniam Girmay and Michael Matthews who had a bit of drama at the intermediate sprint as the Eritrean took maximum points before later being relegated to 3rd place.
Once the second climb of the day began however, the lead group was quickly dwindled with both Girmay and Matthews caught and passed by the peloton. Still up ahead of the race however, were the likes of Enric Mas, Simon Yates, Richard Carapaz, Lenny Martinez, Jai Hindley, Guillaume Martin, Laurens De Plus and Ben Healy among others.
As the breakaway were approaching the penultimate climb of the day, their number totalled 15 riders. With Team Visma | Lease a Bike setting a controlling pace on the front of the peloton behind however, the leader's advantage was only around three and a half minutes. Just before the bottom of the climb however, the break began to split up with Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe breaking things up and getting three riders into a lead group of seven.
On the climb, the trio of Jai Hindley, Enric Mas and Laurens De Plus proved strongest of the break, with EF Education - EasyPost duo Richard Carapaz and Ben Healy working hard together to keep contact. With 2.8km of the climb to go, 62km for the stage, Carapaz linked back to the leaders, thanks in part to Healy's service. With just under 50km to go, another rider managed to join the lead group as Tobias Johannessen joined the party. Way behind, there was growing concern for the grupetto in regards to the time cut. The group including Mark Cavendish among others were already over 32 minutes down at 50km to go.
As the 16km final climb of Plateau de Beille began, the leading quintet's advantage over the Maillot Jaune group was 2:35 with Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Wilco Kelderman still setting the pace. Once the climbing began, Matteo Jorgenson was soon taking over at the front of the bunch and the gap to the leaders was soon diminished to just 1:27.
With 13.6km to go however, perhaps sensing the momentum swinging against them, Carapaz launched the first attack from the break on the final climb. The Olympic champion wasn't able to snap the elastic to his rivals though. As Jorgenson's work continued to obliterate the GC group, the leaders' cooperation had completely extinguished. With the time gap dropping to below a minute, Mas was the next to make a move, with Carapaz and Johannessen on his wheel.
At just over 10km to go though, the breakaway's hopes were all but diminished as Jorgenson pulled over and Jonas Vingegaard attacked at Tadej Pogacar straight on his rival's wheel. With 9.3km to go, the duo had caught Mas and Carapaz although to be fair to him, the latter managed to hold the wheel. Around 15-20 seconds further down the climb, Remco Evenepoel was picking his own way through the remainder of the breakaway, attempting to limit his losses.
At just over 5km to go however, Pogacar attacked Vingegaard and began to ride clear solo. As Pogacar continued to put the power down, the gap was growing rather alarmingly for Vingegaard. By the time the race leader reached the final kilometre, the Dane was nearly a minute down with Evenepoel now two and a half minutes back.
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I give Jonas credit for trying- Visma trying to make the race hard was a knucklehead desperation tactic that we normally see from Tadej when he is not as confident in his ability. There was no reason for Visma to take on the race responsibility given the compromised level of the team, Jonas' Disney-like return from injury, and the massive deficit in Jonas' favour to every man in the breakaway. All Visma needed to do was beat Tadej, not win the stage. They should have been more realistic and accept earlier that they do not have the team to drop Tadej this year...Save Kelderman and Matteo until the final climb, make UAE chase if they wanted the stage win and launch with say 6k to go as opposed to 10. That said, Jonas probably used multiple TUEs to help him heal faster to get to his Granon and Loze climbing level- The man DID empty the tank to drop the entire peloton, and looked really good.... For 6k on a 10k climb. As soon as he looked back for help from Tadej, it was over. The man a lost a minute in 4k on steeper terrain in hotter weather- Checkmate... Jonas needs a prime Kuss, Van Aert, Stevie Kruiseship and at least one other dude in peak form to make today's tactic work and Kelderman and Jorgenson are not enough.... Jonas' probable use of multiple TUEs did an amazing job to get him ready for this Tour, but could not compensate for 6+ weeks off the bike and recovering from serious injury... My confidence in the integrity of the cycling in this Tour has been restored... Barring illness, injury, crash, COVID or stupidity, this Tour is over...
It's not a bad tactics when that's what they have done to Pogacar for two years and won. Jonas would have been alone with Jorgenson on the climb anyway.
It is a bad tactic when WvA cannot pace like he did up Hautacam, when, you don't have Kuss and when you asked Bart Lemmen to join the team days before the TdF and when Jonas was healing a popped lung and multiple broken bones... Visma needed to be more realistic and focus on using the resources available to beat Tadej, not Enric Mas, Carapaz and Laurens de Plus... Visma is not used to riding from behind in any GT last year and the forgot their tactical ABCs...
There was nothing else for them to do though. Pogacar would just have done his usual kick and attacked, and Jonas would likely have lost even more time. Tactics are important, but if someone just has better legs than you then there's nothing you can do.
Nonsense, there were lots of options they could have tried, and certainly much smarter options at their disposal... The strength of that breakaway was a GIFT given how capable it was and how far back on GC they all were. Visma should have showed that they are very happy to lose the stage because their focus should have been only on beating Tadej. Visma is so used to having the MJ, they forgot how to race when you have to come from behind. So putting UAE in a fast sheltered caravan works when you have WvA who can pull up Hautacam like a climber, and Kuss who is an elite climber. WvA's form is nowhere, Kuss is sick and only Matteo has the form or capacity of the Visma team from 2023 and 2022... So they burned up all their men before the final climb to win the stage... A huge mistake. What they did today was not the best use of their limited resources and lacked imagination. They should have had the humility and realism to know that the objective today was to take back 30-60 seconds of time on Tadej, not win the stage... If they were more realistic Jonas would have said, "Look, I have 4-5k at max effort in me today" and then Visma could have done what they needed to set him up to give that max effort by forcing UAE to chase and staying in the draft to max their odds of beating Tadej, NOT to win the stage. Its not until AFTER their hubris got their man smoked by 1 minute in 4k and smashed the small confidence he had after stage 11 into a million pieces that they admitted to themselves that Tadej is just better... Shame. Terrible race management by a team that was obviously in panic and focused on putting on a show, and/or proving a point on social media that they race with "Balls". They lost their focus on trying to win the race, and lost the TdF today
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maria2024202405-04-2025 - Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
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