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Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) landed a hammerblow on Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates) with a devastating time trial performance that put him one big step forward in his Tour de France defense.
Vingegaard dominated Tuesday’s stage 16 time trial to score a massive stage victory and balloon his GC time gap from 10 seconds up to an enormous 1:48.
“I was feeling great today, I think it was the best time trial I’ve ever done,” Vingegaard said shortly after the finish. “I’m really proud of what I did today, and I’m very happy with this victory.
“I even surprised myself with the time trial I did today. I didn’t expect to do so well today to be honest,” he said.
The Dane is now square in the yellow jersey driving seat ahead of another crucial day Wednesday in the monster Alpine “queen stage” and its Col de la Loze finale.
Pogačar made a huge ride for second, almost one minute ahead of third-place Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma).
But even that wasn’t enough to fend off Vingegaard, who delivered a ride-for-the-ages time trial that was a stratospheric 2kph faster than the rest.
Vingegaard said that despite his huge classification advantage, the race ain’t over until the peloton reaches Paris. Wednesday’s Alpine behemoth and another mountain stage on Saturday stand in the way of his title defense.
“There’s still a lot of hard stages to come, so we have to keep fighting over the next few days,” Vingegaard said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
🚿#TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/Vat9g22TgM
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 18, 2023
Other big winners of the day include Adam Yates (UAE Emirates), who rode to seventh on the stage and replaced Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) in third overall, and Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), who defied his pure-climber moniker by finishing 14th on the day to defend his 6th place in the classification.
To change or not to change?
Ciccone opted for a bike change while he raced to a KoM defense. (Photo: MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
Tuesday’s hilly TT packed something for everyone into its punchy 22km parcours. A short opening climb, a fast downhill, and a flat section all came before the crucial uphill toward Combloux.
#TDF2023 / Étape 1️⃣6️⃣
🏁 Passy > Combloux : 22km
Seul contre-la-montre de cette édition : cette étape sera favorable aux rouleurs-grimpeurs puisque le tracé se caractérise par la présence de la côte de Domancy. pic.twitter.com/CwB09MjBcX
— Renaud Breban (@RenaudB31) July 17, 2023
The final climb included a 2km stretch at 10 percent that had riders pondering a bike change.
While the majority rode the whole stage on a time trial bike, some, including Pogačar, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl Trek), and Stefan Küng (Groupama FDJ) opted to switch to a road bike.
KoM-chasing Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) used his climbing bikes for the whole 22km in a bid to go best on the Cat.2 Côte de Domancy and the points it would award.
The U.S. star recorded the fastest time for the mountain sector until his polka dot-wearing rival Ciccone went better and defended his lead in the classification.
Ciccone is now 5 points ahead in the race for the spotty top.
The race for the day, the battle for yellow
Pogačar was fast, but no way fast enough. (Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images)
French TT champion Rémi Cavagna (Soudal Quick-Step) was one of the outside contenders to start, and set the first true mark to beat of 35:42.
Cavagna sat in the hotseat for around an hour before Van Aert muscled up the climb on his TT bike to boot the Frenchman from the top of the leaderboard with a time 15 seconds faster.
The big moment of the day came when Pogačar rolled down the startramp, followed just two minutes later by yellow skinsuited Vingegaard.
Pogačar crushed the first 7km sector to set the fastest time of the day, but when Vingegaard came through soon after, he was going even faster.
The Dane bettered his rival by 16 seconds at the first check, and the gap only kept growing.
By the base of the Domancy kicker, Vingegaard was more than 30 seconds faster than Pogačar.
The top two’s tactics changed for the climb to leave a question over UAE Emirates’ strategy. Vingegaard chose not to switch out his bike, while Pogačar accepted the time lost in the admin in favor of gains on the climb by switching to his lightweight mountain machine.
Vingegaard sure wasn’t slowed down by climbing on his time trial bike.
He ate into the gap on his Slovenian foe in the grinding uphill finale and finished 1:38 faster than Pogačar to put a shoulder firmly into the yellow jersey.
Vingegaard collapsed over his bike at the finish after a ride that’s blown “the closest Tour in decades” apart.