On his post-stage 15 press conference, Jonas Vingegaard stated that he preferred to stick to Tadej Pogacar’s wheel during the whole stage rather than take the risk to let him ride away. Obviously, the duellists of the 110th Tour de France have been marking each other since the Pyrénées but they won’t have such possibility from Passy to Combloux. It’s the only individual time trial this year. The Slovenian and the Dane will start two minutes apart, at 16.58 and 17.00 respectively. They have 22.4kl to cover. The big focus is on the côte de Domancy made famous by the triumph of Bernard Hinault in Sallanches at the 1980 world championship, but the course begins with another climb, not categorized for the KOM competition: côte des Soudans has a 1-km long steep section followed by a false flat uphill to reach the “balconies of Passy” before going downhill towards Sallanches at km 5. It’s not particularly technical, so the whole thing is set to determine who is the strongest between Pogacar and Vingegaard. Both are excellent time triallists. This can be the real final of the 2023 Tour de France even though two mountain stages will remain before the grand finale in Paris.
