Pogacar can see Tour victory after taming Col de la Loze

Tadej Pogačar saw stars the last time he came over the Col de la Loze. On Thursday afternoon, he could see Paris. Stage 18 of the Tour de France brought the anticipated grand offensive from Visma | Lease a Bike, but Pogačar never once looked under duress, and he finished the day with a tighter grip on the yellow jersey.

Pogačar responded smoothly to Jonas Vingegaard’s attack on the Col de la Madeleine with 72km remaining, and although that left him isolated from his UAE Team Emirates-XRG companions, there was never any real sense of jeopardy for the Slovenian.

A stalemate between Pogačar and Vingegaard in the valley after the Madeleine ultimately saw the two favourites drop back to the chasing group while the winning move disappeared up the road. Visma again took up the reins as the final climb began, but never with the same intent.

Indeed, it was Pogačar himself who injected pace in the final 5km of the interminable climb, setting teammate Adam Yates to work. Pogačar responded comfortably to Vingegaard’s eventual attack with 2km to go, and he proceeded to kick clear of his old rival in the final kilometre.

That was enough to take second on stage, 1:45 down on escapee Ben O’Connor (Jayco-Alula), and it also saw him pick up another 11 seconds on Vingegaard to extend his overall lead to 4:26.

After the podium ceremony, Pogačar even seemed to suggest that he had almost welcomed Visma’s onslaught on the Madeleine, reasoning that it heightened his chances of adding to his tally of stage wins on this Tour. And, of course, he felt he had a debt to settle with the Col de la Loze after his collapse there on the 2023 Tour, much like the account he closed with Hautacam last week.

“To be honest, I wanted the stage win, but the priority is, of course, the yellow jersey,” Pogačar said. “When Visma went on the Col de la Madeleine, I was like, ‘Yeah, I can go for the stage as well,’ but they went a bit too hard, maybe. Then also on the downhill, they went so fast.”

In the valley between the Madeleine and the Loze, Pogačar and Vingegaard were in a group of eight that included O’Connor, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) and the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) duo of Primoz Roglic and Florian Lipowitz, but neither man was keen to involve himself in the attacking for the stage victory at that juncture.

“It was such a small group, and they started to attack each other,” Pogačar said. “There was no cooperation in the valley, so I was waiting for my teammates to come back, but they took a long way to come back.”

Still, come back they did, and Pogačar had Adam Yates, Jhonatan Narváez and Marc Soler for company in the yellow jersey group at the foot of the Col de la Loze, though he was content to leave the pace-making to Visma most of the way up.

“When we come to the bottom of the climb, I was thinking Visma would go faster and they would try to bring the breakaway back,” said Pogačar. “But I also think Ben was incredibly strong today for the whole day, and on the final climb, he pulled it off quite well. The stage win slipped away, but I’m happy I have good legs in the Col de la Loze, and I am in yellow.”

Despite shipping another handful of seconds to Pogačar in the finale, Vingegaard was quietly defiant after the finish, insisting the Tour was not yet over. There is still the matter of Friday’s tough stage to La Plagne, where Visma will surely try again. But they haven’t snatched a second from Pogačar yet on this race, and no chink was apparent in his armoury on the Col de la Loze.

“It looks very good. Today was the queen stage, and tomorrow is the second queen stage. Let’s go for it and let’s see how it goes,” said Pogačar.

“In the end, it was not too much stress today, and hopefully I can have the same tomorrow, because probably they will fight again tomorrow.”