Has Tadej Pogačar all but confirmed his 2nd straight win of the Tour de France? It seems likely after a stage of the Tour de France in which the young Slovenian left all other GC contenders in his wake. Pogačar didn't win the stage, coming fourth after his great solo effort allowed him to catch up with the chasing group of Michael Woods and Ion Izagirre, but his performance comfortably took him into the yellow jersey, 1'48'' ahead of 2nd place Wout Van Aert and 4'46'' ahead of the first GC rival in Rigoberto Urán. If beating Pogačar seemed hard yesterday, it seems all but impossible today.
The stage started with a 5km uncategorised climb and from that, we already knew that the Tour was over for both Geraint Thomas and Primož Roglič, being dropped by the main group so early on with such a tough stage ahead, it's over for both in the GC. Ineos' empire of four leaders has already essentially been reduced to one, as Richard Carapaz seems to be the only rider who may be able to challenge Pogačar in the GC. Bar an intermediate sprint won by Sonny Colbrelli and an Astana rider going the wrong way on a descent, the fun really started on the second category 1 climb of the day (and second of the Tour in general), the Col de Romme. Michael Woods attacked from the breakaway to take maximum points over the top of the climb, but he was being chased down by Dylan Teuns, who would catch and overtake the Canadian on the Col de la Colombière. Meanwhile, in the main peloton, Pogačar made his move, attacking again and again to first drop the main peloton and then to drop Richard Carapaz, who did put up a valiant fight against the Slovenian. Before Pogačar's attack, the pace of the peloton saw the yellow jersey of Mathieu Van der Poel get dropped.
After dropping Carapaz, Pogačar began his climb of the Colombière and the rate he was going at was truly ridiculous, seen by how fast he was going past the remnants of the breakaway, looking like he was in a different league to them. Despite being six minutes behind those at the front when he was in the peloton, Pogačar's gap to the leaders was coming down fast and it wasn't completely unfeasible to see him catching them on the final descent. Speaking of the front of the race, Dylan Teuns went over the top of the Colombière by himself to gain maximum points. Not that it was enough for the polka dot jersey, his teammate Wout Poels had done enough earlier in the day to claim that. After building up such a big lead over the rest of the GC contenders, Pogačar knew he couldn't afford to take risks on the descent towards the finish and therefore didn't, allowing Woods and Izagirre to catch and eventually overtake him. At the front, Dylan Teuns was taking risks and had a few close moments where he could have easily crashed. He didn't though and in the end, with Pogačar being cautious, his win was comfortable, coming in 44 seconds ahead of Ion Izagirre in 2nd. Carapaz was caught by other contenders on the final descent, despite being Ineos' leader now, he still lost four minutes to Pogačar, whilst Wout Van Aert, who had some dreams of taking the yellow jersey at the start of the stage, lost five minutes.
What is means for the GC is that Tadej Pogačar has the yellow jersey, his performance on the mountains simply couldn't be matched by any of the other contenders and they're all comfortably behind him now. Urán is 4'46'' behind, Vingegaard is 5 minutes behind, Caparaz, Kelderman and Mas are all just over 5 minutes behind and the rest are not even in the top ten. It leads to the big worry that other contenders may just start focusing on trying to get a podium, thinking that the battle for the yellow jersey is already over. It does feel like that writing this report after the end of the stage. It's hard to picture anyone being able to gain a significant amount of time on Pogačar, even harder to picture anyone taking the jersey off him for the rest of the Tour. Baring something bad happening to the Slovenian, it feels like he should have this Tour in the bag. Even with his team struggling yesterday, they set the pace well for the leader today, and even without that, it does feel like Pogačar doesn't really need a team, he could be a one-man show if he chose to. Credit to Mathieu Van der Poel, who was able to hold the yellow jersey for 6 days, meaning he's already more than impressed in his debut Tour.
Tomorrow is another tough day in the mountains, and those who want to challenge Pogačar for the yellow jersey will have to do something big. Because even though we're only on Stage 9, time is already running out for Pogačar's rivals.
General Classification
- Tadej Pogačar (UAE) – 29h38'25''
- Wout Van Aert (TJV) – + 1'48''
- Alexey Lutsenko (APT) – + 4'38''
Points Classification
- Mark Cavendish (DQT) – 168 pts
- Michael Matthews (BEX) – 113 pts
- Mathieu Van der Poel (AFC) – 103 pts
Mountains Classification
- Wout Poels (TBV) – 23 pts
- Michael Woods (ISN) – 16 pts
- Dylan Teuns (TBV) – 12 pts
Young Rider Classification
- Tadej Pogačar (UAE) – 29h38'25''
- Jonas Vingegaard (TJV) – + 5'00''
- David Gaudu (GFC) – +5'52''
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