It was the first real mountain stage of this years Tour de France with a finish up the legendary Hautacam ascent where in past editions Bjarne Riis, Luc Leblanc, Miguel Indurain, Lance Armstrong, Jonas Vingegaard and other riders did high level performances.
The 181 kilometre stage was not particularly hard or challenging compared to previous ones that we saw in the last years Tour de France but over 33C temperature must have taken a big impact on today’s performances. Before Hautacam the GC group did Col du Soulor with 5.82 ᵉW/Kg for 33:34 min. In the middle of it Visma Lease a Bike stopped pacing hard as Matteo Jorgenson was not feeling well with one of the race favourites Remco Evenepoel dropping quite early but managing to keep the gap close and coming back before Hautacam.
The 50 man breakaway did not have a shot winning this stage as the gap was never too big with Bruno Armirail being solo before the final climb. The best French hope for GC Kevin Vauquelin spent 3402 kilojoules for 3:45h at 13.65 kj/kg/h, showing that this stage was not extremely hard but with the heat was still very demanding.
On Hautacam UAE Emirates took the control with the early breakaway man Tim Wellens and Jhonathan Narvaez who did a hard pull dropping even his teammate Adam Yates. Narvaez set up Pogacar’s attack who again seated rode away from everyone with gapping Jonas Vingegaard who already seemed to struggle to follow Slovenians attack on stage 10. Pogacar increased the gap with winning the stage by 2:10 minutes over Vingegaard with Florian Lipowitz who paced it better finishing 13 seconds behind the Dane. Evenepoel despite dropping on Col du Soulor lost only 3:35 min and kept the third place in GC.
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Pogačar did a good performance with 6.74 ᵉW/Kg for 35:11 min, losing 30 seconds to Bjarne Riis 1996 time when Telekom rider climbed Hautacam on a unipuerto stage in 34:41 min with 6.97 ᵉW/Kg, being the greatest performance of that era. With Pogačar’s hard crash yesterday and the heat the conditions were not perfect and he did a relativelly average performance compared to his 2024 Tour de France and 2025 Criterium du Dauphine stages.
Vingegaard blew up with 6.29 ᵉW/Kg and was slower than on the 2022 Hautacam stage with a way harder stage before it. Florian Lipowitz who was already close to the Dane in Criterium du Dauphine lost 13 seconds with 6.16 ᵉW/Kg, being the best from the next generation climbers, slightly beating Oscar Onley, Tobias Halland Johannesen, Remco Evenepoel and Kevin Vauquelin who did little bit above 6.00 ᵉW/Kg.
“Pogačar did a good (sic!) performance with 6.74 ᵉW/Kg for 35:11 min, losing 30 seconds to Bjarne Riis 1996 time.” Pogacar is WASHED. He is barely faster than 90kg Indurain on a 10kg steel bike with a bell and a kerosene lamp on it.
Kind of funny with how visma kept insisting that this is where they would start to put pogacar to sleep. I’m hoping this makes for very good and tense racing from here on out.
Induran was doping for his big wins. Perhaps Tadej is actually clean.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s been 30 years and still they have not managed to close the gap. I always wonder how much of this can be explained by doping and how much was just due to better talent pool.
100%, changes in clothing and gear will help, but will only help so much, and his gains this year have been INSANE. Time will tell I guess…
You guys minimize Pogacar’s talent and sound ridiculous comparing any current rider to the riders of even 15 years ago. Those riders, Riis included, had blood as thick as paste. Even Merckx has admitted he wasn’t clean. The current era is without a doubt the best in history. Equipment, nutrition, year around training – no comparison.
And I wonder if the author of this article has ever ridden in heat? Or altitude? Or, like today, both?
Jon Joseph, I don’t think the author is trying to minimize Pogs talent at all. Pog not clearing what Riis did on Hautacam and it being described as merely “good” is because the author knows what Pog is capable of. For example, if Pog had performed at his level of the Plateau de Beille stage at last years tour, he would have beaten the Hautacam record.
It’s unbelievable that those numbers were last seen (prior to 2020 at least) in the most doped era of cycling and instead of pointing out the obvious everyone if fawining over Pogacar. Crashed the day before, 33 degrees and still produced a sustained effort of 6.75 W/kg? Armstrong must be seething.
Might want to take another look at the wording in this sentence.. ‘Narvaez set up Pogacar’s attack who again seated rode away from everyone with gapping Jonas Vingegaard who already seemed to struggle to follow Slovenians attack on stage 10.’
Does anyone have the numbers for the TT on 18/6?
65 vs 60 kg is a huge difference in w/kg. the numbers aren’t INSANE if we use pogacar’s actual weight.