Pogacar reigns at Alpe d’Huez and seals the Tour de France

On the Alpe d’Huez of the bandits, Carapaz, Kuss, Lenny dance. Standing on their bikes, hands down on the handlebars, they sprint, attack, challenge each other. They form a legendary group, great figures of the mountains, of the Alps, of the Pyrenees, of Sierra Nevada, of Andorra and Mont Blanc. The insatiable Ecuadorian sprints; the kid from Durango, Colorado, responds; and then it’s the turn of Mariano Martínez’s grandson. They compose a beautiful ballet that rhythmically makes its way through the gigantic rave that are the 21 curves marking the 13.8 kilometers of a regular 8.1% climb. 600,000 people, already loaded with 48 hours of music, chemicals, and impatience in the heart of the Alps, await the arrival of the bandits and champions in the vertical and gigantic stadium. Of the pursued, whose hearts forbid them to unite to defend themselves together. They are brave. Fighters. They are great. Of the pursuer who catches them, a bike with butterfly wings, light, subtle pedal strokes like soap bubbles, devastating like the gaze of a defiant love. Of Tadej Pogacar, supreme judge who forgives no one.

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“It was no secret that I wanted to win today,” says the Slovenian after chasing for 13 kilometers, almost always alone, except for 800m where he took advantage of the wheel of the reborn Adam Yates, who had dropped from one of the breakaways to wait for him. He was the last servant of his team, whose capacity everyone doubted, and also of the yellow jersey’s health, as a virus had ravaged the bodies of four teammates, already with their immune system at the limit, and had forced McNulty, one of the most valuable, to withdraw. And many observe that Pogacar blows his nose more often than on other days, a finger pressing one nostril. On the roadside, El Diablo jumps happily. A steep Sirât.

Allied with the 30 degrees, the 600,000 sweat profusely and their breath mixes with the smell of burnt clutches, the sound of music at full blast, exhaust pipes, the roar of motorcycles, and the smooth passage of the pursued and caught cyclists. Sometimes invisible.

As soon as they left Bourg d’Oisans, on the straight road with the great mountain view ahead, the Austrian Grossschartner turned his head and with great gestural theater repeatedly asked Pogacar, what do I do, what do I do. Accelerate! “We had been going full throttle all day and, at the beginning, in the first kilometer of the Alpe, I knew I had good legs and that there weren’t many left who could follow me or try to go with me. So I tried and went for the summit. I had to face very good riders, but they were fighting a bit among themselves. So that helped me catch them and win the stage.”

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These are no longer just the curves of champions, marked with the names of the 33 who had previously won at the summit of the most popular ski resort. These are the curves of the people who turn the Tour into the biggest, most chaotic and craziest party. The curve of the tall Dutch, of the rookie Danes, of the Welsh, of the English. And soon, there will be a curve for Slovenians and all the stateless people of the world, because Pogacar already has the right for his name to be engraved too, and perhaps in bolder letters than anyone else. A velvet glove in a steel claw that pursues champions and pursues his childhood dreams. To win on Alpe d’Huez! He has been told so much about a climb that is a unique coliseum, that it has become an obsession, and therein lies the greatness of his gesture, and his necessity. When in the sixth stage he showed the world that no one could challenge him in this Tour, he broke the Tourmalet record, bucolic Pyrenees far from the hallucinogenic madness of the Alpe. Chasing and catching Carapaz, Kuss and Lenny, and a dozen more escapees whom he overtakes, and they smile as they cross paths, those who see him as Superman without a cape, flying like Anquetil, the Caravelle, and those who try to stick to his wheel. “What happiness it gives to pass them all,” he says. “But, chapeau, how brave they are.” He also passes Einer Rubio, another of Movistar’s combative riders, and behind him, the UAE car brakes suddenly for a fallen spectator. Rubio crashes into its rear windshield, suffering cuts to his face. And abandons.

Pogacar climbs at an average of 23.367 kilometers per hour. He generates more than 430 watts during the 35m 26s, which is a new climb record, 74 seconds less than Pantani’s 36m 40s, an untouchable god and master. When he attacked, the trio of bandits had a lead of just over three minutes. The last three kilometers, the wide road, the fences calming the beasts, he already had them in his sights. He only hesitated when he saw Kuss attack. “‘Damn,’ I thought. I wonder if I’m too late,” he says. “But, no, it was just his last shot.” He caught them a mile from the summit, studied them, let them follow his wheel, and when there were 800 meters left, with his right index finger pressing his nose to help the last snot come out, he stood on the pedals and accelerated uncatchably to the finish line.

The first kilometers of the stage, the rapid ascent from south to north from Gap via the old Bayard, the tough Noyer, the gentle Ornon, through the gorges that open between the mountains, the cracked asphalt road, the whitish stone villages, smell of humble fig trees damp with dew that the July heat quickly makes boil, and some lavender bushes on the verges still in shadow. Platoons of 20, 30 riders emerge, the wild ones, the same wild ones who refuse every day to let the Tour be conquered by the boring sane ones, those who encourage the madness of the impossible, those who flutter ahead of Pogacar, who lets them do their thing.

The Alpe is madness and a verdict for Ayuso’s Tour, as he drops early from the group of young wild riders fighting for the podium. They reach the finish line separated by a few seconds, first Remco, then Del Toro in white, then Seixas, more than two minutes behind the Slovenian, who, with one stage left returning to the Alpe via another slope with a prior pass through the fathers of the Alps, Croix de Fer, Télégraphe and the 2,645 meters of the Galibier, and the cycling orgy of Montmartre, leads the second place by 7m 11s, the largest lead of what will be his five Tours on the Champs-Élysées, and a podium of absolute champion without Vingegaard.

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General Classification

poscyclist	Team	Time
1 Tadej Pogacar	UAD	3h:17:57
2 Lenny Martinez	TBV	+00:06
3 Richard Carapaz	EFE	+00:09
4 Sepp Kuss	TVL	+01:14
5 Tobias Johannessen	UXM	+02:07
6 Remco Evenepoel	RBH	+02:29
7 Isaac del Toro	UAD	+02:41
8 Mattias Skjelmose	LTK	+02:45
9 Paul Seixas	DCD	+02:45
10 Harold Tejada	XAT	+03:22

poscyclist	Team	Time
1 Tadej Pogacar	UAD	67h:53:00
2 Remco Evenepoel	RBH	+07:11
3 Isaac del Toro	UAD	+09:42
4 Paul Seixas	DCD	+10:06
5 Lenny Martinez	TBV	+13:00
6 Mattias Skjelmose	LTK	+13:09
7 Juan Ayuso	LTK	+15:58
8 Richard Carapaz	EFE	+21:15
9 Tom Pidcock	PQT	+21:30
10 Jordan Jegat	TEN	+23:21

View full classification