Jonas Vingegaard managed to beat Tadej Pogacar by an unexpected margin of 1’38’’ in the mountainous time trial to Combloux to become the first ever Danish to win a Tour de France ITT and impose himself against the clock like Julian Alaphilippe (2019) and Chris Froome (2016) before him. It’s Jumbo-Visma’s first stage win this year. The Dane leads the Tour by 1’48’’ and Adam Yates joins team-mate Pogacar in the top 3 overall.
RÉMI CAVAGNA FIRST OF THE ITT SPECIALISTS ON THE ROAD
Michael Morkov was the first rider to leave the starting ramp at 13.05. There was one non-starter among the 157 riders on the ITT entry list: Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar). Dries Devenyns (Soudal-Quick Step), the oldest participant of this Tour de France who will turn 40 on the eve of the grand finale in Paris, was invited to the hot seat as he set the best time of the first twenty riders in action. He was ousted by Nikias Arndt (Bahrain Victorious) before Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) took over. But it was ITT French champion Rémi Cavagna (Soudal-Quick Step) who scored a reference for the specialists in 35’42’’ at the average speed of 37.647km/h. The “TGV from Clermont-Ferrand” had chosen to not change bike for the Domancy climb.
BELGIAN ITT CHAMPION OUSTS FRENCH CHAMPION FROM THE HOT SEAT
Cavagna remained on the hot seat for two hours and twelve minutes. A bike change didn’t enable Stefan Küng to reverse the situation after he lost to the Frenchman at the bottom of the climb the best time he provisionally established at check point 1. But Belgian national champion for ITT Wout van Aert bettered him as he opted for the same tactic of covered all the 22.4 kilometres on his TT bike. He rode 35 seconds faster than Cavagna from the bottom of the Domancy climb till the finish line to clinch an average speed of 37.912km/h.
VINGEGAARD AHEAD FROM START TO FINISH
In the duel for the Maillot Jaune, Vingegaard indicated his superiority from the start as he rode the first 7km 16’’ faster than Pogacar. He looked like taking more risks in the curves going downhill. At the bottom of the hill, where Pogacar got a new bike, the Dane extended his advantage to 31’’. At the top of the hill, still on TT bike, he doubled it up to 1’05’’ and completed the course with the enormous advantage of 1’38’’. Pogacar posted the second best time of the day with Van Aert rounding out the stage podium and Pello Bilbao taking a worthy fourth place. Adam Yates managed to overtake Carlos Rodriguez in third place overall while Felix Gall made it back into the top 10 at the expense of Guillaume Martin.
