Stage 18 of the Tour de France promised high drama and it delivered, but despite their best efforts, Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike were unable to break the resolve of Tadej Pogacar.
The yellow jersey in fact extended his lead over the Dane by another 11 seconds, leaving he and his team with a mountain to climb, both physically and metaphorically, on stage 19, the final mountain stage of this year’s race.
Pogacar rode a conservative race to simply consolidate his lead, allowing Visma to shred the race down on the day’s second hors-categorie climb, the Col de la Madeleine, before a regrouping on the valley road to Col de la Loze.
That wasn’t quite what Visma had in mind and after all their efforts there was nothing they could do to distance Pogacar, who took control on the final climb and launched a sprint for second place on the top of the fearsome Col de la Loze.
First place went to Australian climber Ben O’Connor, who endured a torrid start to this year’s race, crashing and losing time on the very first stage and watching his GC ambitions of a top-five finish go up in smoke.
But he rode superbly on stage 18 to get into the day’s breakaway, sticking with the GC group as they absorbed the escapees on the Col de la Madeleine, before attacking again on the valley road, and finally dropping his sole remaining companion, Einer Rubio, with 16km left of the final climb.
He continued to time-trial his way to the finish and his second Tour de France stage win, while behind, Pogacar and Vingegaard were locked together until the final few hundred metres – along with Oscar Onley, whose superb Tour continued as he moved within 22 seconds of Florian Lipowitz and the final podium place.
The Dane was distanced as the yellow jersey stormed off to banish his past demons from the Col de la Loze, where he cracked in the 2023 Tour, and it was Vingegaard this time picking up the pieces. He insisted “the Tour isn’t over, still” at the finish, and while that’s true, he is rapidly running out of time to haul back his four-and-a-half minute deficit.
Stage 19 is arguably his final chance, with a medium-mountains stage with ‘breakaway’ written all over it on stage 20. 19 isn’t quite as brutal in terms of elevation gain and climb difficulty as its immediate predecessor… but that’s not saying much.
There are still five categorised climbs on the menu today, crammed into a short but far from sweet 129.9km. Beginning in Albertville, the riders will go through the Alps, and probably through all seven stages of grief, en route to the summit finish – the last of this year’s Tour – at La Plagne.
The first climb comes just 18km in but the road essentially goes uphill from the word go. The intermediate sprint is only 8km into proceedings at Ugine – a nice gesture for the sprinters, who can switch to focusing purely on survival from then on.
After Ugine the road ramps up to the category-two Cote d’Hery-sur-Ugine, an 11.3km climb averaging 5.1%, and a first test before things get significantly harder.
The category-one Col des Saisies is next after a very short descent: 13.7km at 6.4%, it’s the second-longest of today’s offering. Another descent leads immediately into the next climb, the hors-categorie Col du Pre, a Tour de France regular (12.6km at 7.7%).
Another short dscent follows before more climbing up the category-two Cormet de Roselend (5.9% at 6.3%), before a 20km downhill into the valley road leading to La Plagne, the final serious mountain of this Tour: 19.1km at 7.2%. If the breakaway is brought back, it’ll be on these slopes.
Route map and profile
Start time
Stage 19 begins at 1.30pm local time (12.30pm BST) and is set to conclude around 5.20pm local time (4.20pm BST).
Prediction
Tadej Pogacar had said prior to stage 18 that he wanted to win, but ultimately opted for a safer, conservative ride, with all eyes on lifting the trophy in Paris. Will he go for the same tactic today, on the final mountaintop finish, or decide to add one more to his haul of four stage wins from this year?
If he fancies it, there’s essentially no stopping him, but on the last three summit finishes UAE haven’t ridden themselves into the red chasing down breakaways, so that may be the case again today – particularly after Visma put them to the sword on stage 18.
If a strong breakaway gets up the road, Michael Storer, Luke Plapp, and Santiago Buitrago are all potential winners, but all have had up-and-down Tours. Lenny Martinez has shown flashes of brilliance but been unable to stick with the best. Pablo Castrillo has had a very quiet race but is a double Vuelta a Espana winner from last year, both times on punishing mountain terrain.
Alternatively, Visma-Lease a Bike could once again send satellite riders up the road to aid Jonas Vingegaard, and keep them up the road for security if the yellow jersey group hits the final climb too late to make the catch. On his third-week form, who’d put it past Sepp Kuss to win a Tour de France stage?
