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Tim Merlier of the Soudal-Quick Step team won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a classic sprinter’s finish on the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux.
As the Tour headed away from the Pyrenees, through Gascony towards the Atlantic coast, a lull settled over a shell-shocked peloton as it came to terms with the demonstration of domination from Tadej Pogacar in Thursday’s mountain stage to Gavarnie-Gèdre.
“What now?” was the question on most lips as the convoy gathered the morning after Pogacar’s Tourmalet masterclass, which took him into a seemingly unassailable lead over his perennial rival Jonas Vingegaard, the winner of this year’s Giro d’Italia.
The consensus is that, unless the defending champion crashes or gets ill, victory is already assured. It’s a measure of his superiority that with only six stages of 21 raced so far, the conversation has already moved on to the fight for second and third place.
Geraint Thomas, now director of racing at Netcompany Ineos, who finished third in the Tour to Vingegaard and Pogacar in 2022, described Pogacar’s attack over the Col du Tourmalet as “super-impressive.”
“He had 30 seconds on Vingegaard at the top of Tourmalet, which isn’t crazy, but then he’s great on his own. The descent and the valley definitely favoured him, rather than Jonas.
“So I’m not surprised that the gap went up, but I am surprised it was what it was. What he and his team are doing is phenomenal.”
Thomas commented: “It will be interesting to see how the race goes now and if Visma Lease-a-bike still think that Jonas doing the Giro [before the Tour] was the best thing. They know more than me when it comes to Jonas, but if I was going for the Tour, I’m not sure that the Giro would be the best preparation.”
Thomas agreed with those who think that Vingegaard, with riders such as the Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel, Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG teammate Isaac del Toro and the French prodigy, Paul Seixas, clustered close behind him in the overall standings, may have put at risk a podium finish in Paris. Thomas said: “It’s easy to just assume he’s going to be second, but there are others still riding well. Getting Del Toro into second place will be one of UAE’s big goals. They’ll be talking about that on the bus.”
There was a hasty attempt by Evenepoel’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team to paper over the widening cracks in the relationship between the Belgian and his young teammate Florian Lipowitz. After Thursday’s finish, a fuming Evenepoel had launched into an angry tirade about the German. “I had asked for a lead-out, and I didn’t get one,” he said. “I think I was justifiably angry.
“I asked him to ride at the front for one kilometre, and that wasn’t possible. That made me angry, and that will need to be discussed thoroughly.”
But the team manager, Ralph Denk, was quick to play down the fallout from Evenepoel’s outburst, saying that the rift had been exaggerated. “There was a bit of a disagreement, a language barrier, but in the heat of the moment after a 180km mountain stage. There is really nothing major,” Denk said, “and they even sat together at dinner and laughed.”
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Thomas, however, lauded the Belgian’s character. “For the fans and media, it’s great. We want character. Obviously, you want to keep those conversations on the bus, but at the same time we want to promote the sport. Having guys like Remco, who wear their heart on their sleeve, is a good thing.”
Pogacar’s biggest Grand Tour winning margin to date was in the 2024 Giro d’Italia, which he won by almost 10 minutes, while his biggest in the Tour came in 2024 when he beat Vingegaard by more than six minutes.
His most notable collapse in the Tour came on the Col du Granon in 2022, but a repeat now seems unlikely.
“If I look at my physical capabilities, I’m better than I was back then,” Pogacar said. “I’ve improved my mentality, my experience and one of the biggest changes is the organisation around my feeding, hydration and nutrition.”
Matt White, sports director at the Movistar team, said: “He will be playing games in the coming stages and he will want to get Del Toro on the podium. I can see that happening.
“He’s so relaxed and so confident, it’s crazy. The level of the man is something we’ve never seen before. If he stays healthy, I think it’s over.”
