Ten days into the Tour de France, and on Bastille Day no less, it would be easy to feel a dearth of hope after watching Tadej Pogačar put yet more time into his nearest rivals in the Massif Central. He now leads Jonas Vingegaard by 3:36, with almost two whole weeks, and most of the mountains, left to race.
The rivalry between Pogačar and Vingegaard has defined the Tour since 2021, but this year, for perhaps the first time, it appears that there could be more than one challenger – in the battle for second, at least.
Matt de Neef
Two years after its last visit to Le Lioran on stage 11 of the 2024 race, when Vingegaard inconceivably out-sprinted Pogačar, the Tour has returned to the same finish, but the feeling afterwards is very different. This time, Pogačar arrived first and by some margin, padding his already comfortable advantage. Remco Evenepoel led the 'podium group' home 32 seconds after the yellow jersey having chased back after the penultimate climb, with Paul Seixas beating Florian Lipowitz in the sprint for third place. Having towed the group home following the yellow jersey’s attack, Jonas Vingegaard brought up the rear, behind Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose. He lost 54 seconds to Pogačar (including bonuses) and 18 to Evenepoel.
With Isaac Del Toro toppling off the podium and dropping down to seventh overall, there’s been a slight reorganisation of the GC standings, but most notable is the growing competition for the podium, and even for Vingegaard’s second place – for which super-domestique Del Toro can still not be written off. After 10 stages, the riders spanning second to fifth are all within a minute of each other, and Lipowitz is only eight seconds outside the minute mark.
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