TdF stage 4 report: Pogačar strikes – Escape Collective

Tadej Pogačar’s first big salvo in his fight to dethrone two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard was neutralized on stage 2, but on stage 4’s early foray into the high mountains, the UAE Team Emirates captain succeeded in forging a crack to his rival. Pogačar attacked near the summit of the Col du Galibier to open a small gap on the Visma-Lease a Bike rider and pried it out further with some zesty descending to take a solo victory in Valloire.

Isolated in the chase, Vingegaard slowly lost time and was re-caught by the select group of favorites behind, as Soudal-Quick Step’s Remco Evenepoel led the chase across 35 seconds behind. Thanks to the time gaps and time bonuses at the Galibier summit and finish, Pogačar also separated himself from a four-way tie on overall time and now leads the race by 45 seconds to Evenepoel, with Vingegaard third, five seconds further back.

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How it happened

• After the field kept things together through the early intermediate sprint, a breakaway of 17 riders, including world champion Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and talented climbers like David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Warren Barguil (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) got free and worked smoothly together until midway up the long drag on the Galibier, when the group disintegrated under attacks and were caught well before the summit
• Behind, UAE took control of the pacemaking, with long pulls by Nils Politt and Tim Wellens gradually grinding off riders. After a brief Adam Yates dig, João Almeida and Juan Ayuso traded pulls as the front group dwindled to just eight riders. Aside from Pogačar, only Evenepoel had a teammate left in Mikel Landa.
• The attack everyone expected came 700 meters from the summit, as Pogačar launched one of his characteristically wicked accelerations. Vingegaard was briefly able to follow, but the Slovenian opened a small gap near the summit and crossed over alone, taking the top time bonus.
• Pogačar continued to press his advantage on the descent, using every available space on the road to gradually force out the gap. Behind, Vingegaard chased alone, while Evenepoel initially struggled to maintain contact with the other riders. But the Belgian hung tough and Vingegaard was eventually re-caught low on the descent by the four-rider chase and Evenepoel led across the line to gather the second-place time bonus.

I wanted to hit hard today. And I know this stage really well. I’ve been training here a lot of weeks already in [the] past. And yeah, it felt like a home stage.

Pogačar, speaking to his comfort on the climb and descent

Brief analysis

• The headwind complicated UAE’s tactics some on the climb. “On the wheel, it was not super hard, but the team did super job,” said Pogačar. “But I didn’t want to go too early because because of the wind, and I had to do all the difference I could in the last few hundred meters.”
• Pogačar also said he was surprised to see wet roads in the first few corners on the descent and initially looked a little tentative, but settled in with more confidence as he dropped to drier pavement. “It was a bit scary. This descent is super fast; if you know the road it helps,” he said.
• Behind, both Vingegaard and Evenepoel looked slightly uncomfortable as well. Vingegaard lost time to Pogačar at nearly every point, while Evenepoel – third over the summit – was caught by the four-rider chase and then briefly dropped before getting back on later. Vingegaard is a solid descender, but aside from stage 2’s brief final drop before the line, this was his first significant race-pace descent since his awful Itzulia crash (which also brought down Evenepoel, although he was not as severely injured).
• Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) came in as a dark horse favorite, but has been quiet so far. While his legs seem to be improving, he was last rider in the eight-man group and seemed clearly unable to match the pace set by the others.
• That said, it was Vingegaard who looked worst at the finish: gapped slightly off the pace as Evenepoel opened his sprint, and crossing with a haggard, exhausted expression that we’re not used to seeing on the normally unflappable Dane. Vingegaard is clearly among the best climbers in the race and there is no cause for panic; his form can very easily improve the next two weeks. But it’s also clear that that, right now at least, Pogačar has the advantage, including as a team; when Matteo Jorgenson dropped high on the Galibier it left Vingegaard completely isolated, where Pogačar still had two teammates and Evenepoel one.

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Up next

It’s out of the high mountains in a transitional stage that will likely end in a bunch sprint. The 177.4 km ride from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Saint Vulbas has several climbs, but no difficult ascents and the final summit is more than 30 km from the finish line.

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