Pogacar bursts clear to deliver payback in Alps and tighten Tour de France grip

There is no stopping Tadej Pogacar. The Giro d’Italia winner took a definitive and conclusive grip on the yellow jersey, with two stages of the 2024 Tour de France remaining, after another solo win, on stage 19 to Isola 2000.

In yet another display of daunting strength, Pogacar, of the UAE Emirates team, crushed closest rivals, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma Lease-a-Bike and Soudal Quick Step’s Remco Evenepoel, in the high altitude passes of the Mercantour Alps. It was the Slovenian’s 10th Grand Tour stage win of 2024.

Related: Tour de France 2024: crunch time in the Alps for lead contenders on stage 19 – live

This was payback for Pogacar for the past humiliations he has endured at the hands of Vingegaard and his team. Dropped in the Alps by Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023, the 25-year-old exacted brutal revenge, increasing his lead on the defending champion by 1min 42sec to a shade over five minutes.

Just to rub salt in the wound, Pogacar also denied the Dane’s teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, a debut Tour stage win, catching the American rider almost within sight of the finish line.

Much had been made of the Slovenian’s supposed vulnerability at high altitude, but not only did Pogacar survive the thin air of the Tour’s highest peak, the Cime de la Bonette, but he also cruised further ahead in the overall standings and again emphasised his superiority over all in the peloton.

On what was labelled the “queen stage” of the race, with three ascents all over 2,000 metres, the defending champion Vingegaard, able in previous years to expose Pogacar’s weakness on the very highest climbs, was expected to flourish.

In the end, the reverse scenario played out. It was the Dane who suffered, and Pogacar who profited.

On the final climb to Isola 2000, Vingegaard morphed from champion to limpet, sticking doggedly to Evenepoel’s back wheel, but was unable to aide the pursuit of Pogacar, after the race leader had attacked a little under nine kilometres from the finish.

For Vingegaard the walnut-whip of the towering Cime de la Bonette, the high-point of the Tour expected to provide the platform for a fightback, became a road to nowhere. What had been expected to be a high-altitude “death zone”, that would test Pogacar’s capabilities with a fiery attack from the defending champion, did not materialise.

Four kilometres from the cone-like peak, the group of favourites had dwindled to 18 riders, with Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel all present. The biggest surprise of the day, however, was that, as the contenders climbed into the thin air at the 2,802-metre summit of the Bonette, there were no attacks.

With two of his teammates, Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman, in the six-man breakaway, the scene was set for the Dane to make his move, but nothing transpired.

That advance party had been sent up the road to pave the way for a Vingegaard attack, which he did not produce, so on the hoof, his team played a second card, that of a Jorgenson stage win. But showing an insatiable appetite for success, the Slovenian race leader thwarted that too.

Even with a summit finish and time trial still to race, the Tour is now won. But Pogacar has been warned by two former Grand Tour champions, one stripped of his accolades, the other with his public image still intact, over displaying arrogance.

In the aftermath of the Slovenian’s attack on the Col du Noyer on Wednesday, Pogacar was reprimanded by none other than Lance Armstrong.

“It was really unnecessary to attack like that,” Armstrong said on his podcast. “This will only draw more attention to Pogacar. If there’s already speculation about his performance, this certainly doesn’t help.”

That view was supported by former Giro d’Italia champion, Tom Dumoulin, speaking to the Dutch broadcaster NOS.

“Pogacar didn’t need to do this at all. He did it solely to unsettle Vingegaard,” Dumoulin said, latching on to other growing suggestions of arrogance in the French media.

“There’s definitely an element of arrogance. The rivalry between Vingegaard and Pogacar has spanned three years, and Pogacar can’t accept being beaten two years in a row,” Dumoulin said. “Now that he’s back in control and has the strength to challenge Vingegaard again, he’s thinking, ‘Now, I’ll get you back.’”