PLATEAU DE SOLAISON, France — A day can be a long time at the Tour de France. After two weeks of impressive sporting feats somewhat lacking in plot, the drama that is part of the Tour de France's mythos exploded into life.
It began with knocks in the dead of the night from anti-doping for Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, a development that set tongues wagging at the stage start. Both stars accepted that the authorities were just doing their jobs, although Pogačar couldn't get back to sleep again after his 5am wake-up, instead opting for a number of coffees soundtracked by Eminem and admitting he'd arrived at the start line overcaffeinated.
Caley Fretz
And then the race unfurled. In the blink of an eye Vingegaard had crashed out, slipping on a roundabout late in the stage. As others fell away from Pogačar's and Isaac del Toro's wheels on the Plateau de Solaison, Remco Evenepoel hung on and launched a gritty sprint for the win, providing the third and final panel of the triptych that was stage 15 of the Tour de France.
In the press room 20 km from the summit of Solaison, and for France more broadly, Jonas Vingegaard's crash happened during a France TV ad break. This meant viewers first learned of the Dane's Tour coming to a premature end when they were greeted with the image of the Dane on the ground clutching his arm, eliciting gasps and then groans.
But it was an hour and a half later, when the stage winner and yellow jersey were beamed into our nondescript sports hall, that breaths were held, knowing the spectre of the early hours doping raids would be discussed.
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