Tadej Pogacar closes on Tour de France triumph with Stage 19 win

ISOLA 2000 – Tadej Pogacar climbed to a convincing victory in Stage 19 of the Tour de France on July 19, extending his overall lead over defending champion Jonas Vingegaard.

With two stages remaining, the 2020 and 2021 champion leads his closest rival by over five minutes, while Remco Evenepoel remains third at around seven minutes.

UAE Team Emirates’ Pogacar is all set to win the 2024 Tour as he conquered a 144.6km ride from Embrun to Isola 2000, but he had to put in the hard work especially nearing the end.

American Matteo Jorgenson had taken the lead from a six-man breakaway with 10km left, with Pogacar three minutes behind before the Slovenian launched an explosive attack to overtake him, crossing the line by himself.

“Tadej shows he has crazy power, crazy power. We go full gas and he attacks,” said teammate Adam Yates.

“He has shown in the last few mountain days he’s in really good shape and if we do a good pace, he can attack... so we just try and go as hard as possible for him and off he goes.”

The man himself hailed a “perfect” win – his fourth stage victory in this edition – but admitted he expended all his energy in his legs in chasing down Jorgenson.

“I had good legs together. I knew this climb super well. We did it exactly like we said, 100 per cent perfect,” said Pogacar, who is also two stages away from a Giro d’Italia and Tour double, which would be a first in 25 years.

“The main goal was to take the stage. And when I went past Matteo, I killed my legs. All the breakaway guys were super strong.

“We’re looking better than ever. Tomorrow I can enjoy the stage, and maybe we let the breakaway go.

“Let’s go and enjoy tomorrow. Every year I average three stage wins and I hope I can continue.”

Previous weak moments for Pogacar have come at altitude and in hot weather as he let slip the Tour title to Denmark’s Vingegaard. So the 25-year-old will have been happy riding under overcast skies as the mercury dipped to 18.5 deg C.

There was plenty of altitude on the menu, however, as the pack first crossed the fan-packed Col de la Bonette, a 23km climb at 7 per cent average gradient to the dizzying altitude of 2,800m.

The final climb to Isola 2000 ski resort is hardly less crushing and Pogacar attacked and left his rivals trailing in his wake and chewed up the attackers one by one in quick succession.

Jorgenson was second on the day at 21 seconds, Simon Yates had led much of the way but dropped to third at 40sec after Pogacar passed him.

Richard Carapaz was fourth at 1min 11sec and Evenepoel fifth with Vingegaard on his wheel.
AFP, REUTERS