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With the riders of the 2023 Tour de France now taking a well-earned rest day, let’s take the opportunity to look back at the three tricky stages that led us here. Three hot days in the mountains, three days of massive crowds, three stages in which the two GC favourites – Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar – tested each other repeatedly but weren’t able to make any real headway.
Without further ado, here’s all the action courtesy of some wonderful photos from Kristof Ramon, and Ashley & Jered Gruber.
Big crowds, clear blue skies, and the world’s biggest bike race.Classic.Often, the people on the roadside are as interesting as those in the bike race. We published a gallery of these “roadside randoms” last week, and we’ll have another tomorrow, focussing on week 2 of the race.Looks warm.Stage 13 ended with the climb up the Grand Colombier.The race leaders hit the switchbacks, among them eventual stage winner Michał Kwiatkowski.Great crowds again.Some great snapping here from the Grubers.And likewise from Kristof Ramon.Wherever Pogačar has gone, overall leader Vingegaard has followed closely by.The face of a man who’s emptied the tank for his team leader.Please don’t do this. Even though the photos look cool, don’t bring flares to bike races.As they’ve done so often this Tour, Pogačar and Vingegaard fought it out just before the line. On this occasion Pogačar crossed first (in third place), taking four bonus seconds.More great crowds at the finish.Stage 14 was a lumpy one with five categorised climbs.Here’s the bunch descending off the first of those climbs, the Col de Saxel.James Shaw was one of several riders to crash on the descent off the Col de Saxel.So too Romain Bardet.Hot, hot, hot.The day’s final climb was the mighty Col de Joux Plane.Big crowds awaited the riders on that final ascent.Another day in the mountains, another duel between Pogačar and Vingegaard.Pogačar would have one of his attacks thwarted by the dense crowds and a moto that wasn’t going fast enough.More from those dense crowds. You can see why it was hard for the riders to get through.Sepp Kuss has proven invaluable for Vingegaard throughout the Tour, as he so often has for his GC leaders in recent Grand Tours. He would. crash on stage 15 though, so his impact in the final week remains to be seen.Jai Hindley (right) was caught up in an early crash on stage 14 and ended up losing time in the GC fight.The stage finished with the descent off the Joux Plane.Carlos Rodriguez slipped away from the GC favourites on that last descent …… to take his biggest win yet. He’s just 22 years old.Pogačar second on the stage, Vinegaard third, but with Vingegaard taking bonus seconds over the Joux Plane, Vingegaard actually extended his overall lead … by one second.Family time for Vingegaard post-stage.Stage 15, the final stage before the rest day.It was a day for the breakaway with Wout Poels going it alone … … and winning stage 15 by more than two minutes. At 35 years of age, it’s the Dutchman’s first Grand Tour stage win.Another day in the break for Giulio Ciccone, who finished the stage in 14th.On the final climb to Sanint-Gervais Mont-Blanc, the two favourites shed their super domestiques and again faced off 1 vs 1.Pogačar again had the superior kick, but it counted for nothing, with the time bonuses all accounted for. The pair are just 10 seconds apart with six stages remaining.Vingegaard has now had 10 days in yellow and leads into the second rest day.With he and Pogačar so evenly matched uphill, it might well come down to Tuesday’s individual time trial to split the pair.
