Tadej Pogačar tested Jonas Vingegaard’s legs on the steep San Luca climb in the Tour de France Stage 2, but the Slovenian could not drop his arch nemesis on a 5-minute climb, despite breaking Primož Roglič’ climbing record.
The Tour de France Italian Grand Depart continued with a second tough day, which created gaps between the GC riders. Hot weather and short climbs hurt some riders on Stages 2 and 1. Stage 2 featured the San Luca climb (1.9 km, 10.4%), used in the previous editions of Giro dell’Emilia, where Primož Roglič was unstoppable three times on an uphill sprint.
Wout van Aert and Tiesj Benoot paced the first ascent of San Luca easily in the peloton with 6.60 ᵉW/Kg for 6:22 min at 31 degrees Celsius. Egan Bernal before the second San Luca had spent 3,222 kilojoules for 4:27h, which is 12.76 kj/kg/h. It was a long day in the sun but nothing particularly intense.
Visma | Lease a Bike and Benoot also paced the first part of the final San Luca ascent before Adam Yates and UAE Team Emirates took over. Joao Almeida and Juan Ayuso were not looking great and were not used as domestiques. Yates was pulling hard for Tadej Pogačar as many GC riders struggled up the climb, including Primož Roglič. In the last 700 metres of the climb, Tadej Pogačar launched and only Jonas Vingegaard responded to him. The last part of the climb was below a 7% gradient and Remco Evenepoel might have been surprised by the attack, but in the right position in the group, he maybe could have followed Pogačar.
Tadej Pogačar set a new climbing record on San Luca, pushing 7.89 ᵉW/Kg for 5:27 min. The previous fastest time was set by Primož Roglič in the 2019 Giro dell’Emilia. He was 11 seconds slower with 7.67 ᵉW/Kg. Remco Evenepoel and Richard Carapaz lost 9 seconds to Pogačar and Vingegaard, averaging 7.64 ᵉW/Kg. Adam Yates, Maxim Van Gils, Matteo Jorgenson and Enric Mas were in the third group with 7.46–7.50 ᵉW/Kg.
The stage was won by 23-year-old Kevin Vauquelin from a breakaway, dropping rouleurs Jonas Abrahamsen and Nelson Oliveira on the last San Luca ascent. Pogačar and Vingegaard continued to work together after the climb with Evenepoel and Carapaz bridging to them. They finished 21 seconds ahead of the bigger GC group with other contenders. Romain Bardet lost the yellow jersey to Pogačar by six seconds. Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Carapaz have the same time as the Slovenian but Pogačar had the smallest sum of results in the first two stages so goes into yellow.
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I just can’t see how that’s Pogi’s 100%, surely he can go way above 8w/kg for 5 minutes
It definitely looked more like a little tester than full effort from Pogacar.
KOM is Mike Woods in 5min25 why is he not mentionned?