Pogacar caps Tour de Suisse win with inevitable mountaintop triumph

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was in a league of his own from the opening day of the Tour de Suisse, and he underscored the point on the tough final stage to Villars-sur-Ollon.

By his own astounding standards, Pogačar was relatively restrained here, waiting until the final 8km before launching his inevitable winning attack on the final haul to the line.

Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) was parked on Pogačar’s wheel, and he briefly tried to follow the move, almost out of instinct. Within a few pedal strokes, the Ecuadorian checked out, realising that his race was for second place overall and not for Pogačar’s yellow jersey.

Pogačar still had over a minute to make up on the survivors of the day’s early break, and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) put up stiff resistance, gamely hanging onto a lead of 20 seconds as he entered the final 2km. 

The catch was inevitable, even if Martinez delivered a fine and courageous performance here. Martinez was beginning to fight his machine on the upper reaches, however, while Pogačar’s pedalling was ominously smooth, and the Slovenian caught his prey just beneath the flamme rouge.

Pogačar slowed briefly before accelerating past Martinez with 700m to go and cruising towards his third stage win of the week and his twelfth victory of a season that has already yielded triumphs at Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour de Romandie. 

Pogačar was able to slow and swap high fives with fans in the finishing straight, with Martinez spilling across the line in second place, eight seconds down. Bart Lemmen (Visma) held on from the break to take third at 1:33, while Carapaz sealed second overall after coming home exactly two minutes down in seventh. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) did enough to secure third overall from Tobias Foss (Netcompany-Ineos).

In the final reckoning, Carapaz finished some 6:32 down on the rampant Pogačar, who won with a 69km solo on the opening day, attacked again in the finale of the second and then won the stage 4 time trial and the lone summit finish. 

The final day of the Tour de Suisse was essentially composed of three laps over the Col de la Croix, with the race starting and finishing midway up the ascent at Villars-sur-Ollon. That meant the peloton was already on the upper reaches of the ascent when the flag dropped on Sunday, and the day’s early break formed almost immediately.

Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step), Bart Lemmen (Visma), Mattia Gaffuri (Picnic-PostNL), Paul Double, Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull), Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek), Andrew August (Netcompany-Ineos), Afonso Eulalio and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) led after cresting the summit for the first time, and they were still out in front when the came around to tackle the 19km ascent in full for the first time.

The escapees had two minutes in hand when they reached the summit, with Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad setting the tempo behind. That status quo remained in place as they dropped over the other side and came around once more to tackle the hors categorie ascent in full for the second time. 

The gap stretched out beyond 2:30 on the ascent before UAE started to up the ante on Pogačar’s behalf as the race crossed the finish line for the penultimate time with 52km to go. Shortly afterwards, Decathlon CMA CGM took up the reins for Matthew Riccitello, and their effort quickly splintered the yellow jersey group, with Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) among those distanced.

The surge from Decathlon rid Pogačar of some teammates, but Felix Grossshartner and Jhonatan Narváez remained by his side to the top, where the break’s lead had been shaved to just 1:25.

At the foot of the final climb, Lemmen’s acceleration splintered the front group, with only Quintana and Martinez coming with him. Martinez would press on alone soon afterwards, but he must have known what was coming.

With 8km to go, Pogačar launched his inevitable attack, quickly burning Richard Carapaz off his wheel and setting off in pursuit of the remnants of the break. His Tour de Suisse would end with three stage wins, overall victory and a resounding message to his rivals ahead of the Tour de France.