Pogačar's illusory form

Slovene's initial parity with Vingegaard hid underlying weakness due to injury, writes Adam Becket

-  Adam Becket

It was all a dream. Those first two weeks of the Tour de France where the battle for the maillot jaune seemed like the tightest of the century, a fortnight where at the end just 10 seconds separated Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) from Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), were an illusion. In the end, Pogačar did not have the form or the condition to even come close to beating Vingegaard, who might very well have won dominantly anyway.

That lack of form and condition was clear in the stage 16 time trial, where Vingegaard put 1.38 into his big rival, on a course that seemed to suit them both.

However, it was the next day on the Col de la Loze that the disparity became so blatant that Pogačar basically admitted that he was finished. A radio message, broadcast on TV, said it all: "I'm gone, I'm dead."