Jonas the barbarian Vingegaard, the Viking king. The current champion gave a coup of authority on the Tour with Thor’s mallet. The leader left his rival, Pogacar, shivering, for whom it was useless to almost double Carlos Rodríguez, who also suffered and loses, for the moment, the podium position by 5 seconds. His, against Adam Yates, is an assumable company, Pogacar’s today seems an impossible mission. The Dane amazed the world with a prodigious time trial in which he destroyed all the forecasts. What a review, what a show off, incredible destruction. Who says now that it will be decided by seconds? Who can talk about equality now? Who dares to say that yellow no longer has an owner?
The Côte de Domancy did justice to its myth. The climb is a legend among cycling lovers who repeat like a mantra “Ah, the Sallanches World Cup, ah, the 1980 World Cup”. Holy madness. Hell for all, heaven for one. Then he was called Hinault and dressed in the colors of the French flag. He now responds to the name of Vingegaard and wore yellow. Those who lived it on August 31, 1980 are always great in details, almost exaggerated. Neither more nor less than those who witnessed Vingegaard roll from Passy to Combloux and devour the terrible ramps of the circuit of death.
“Go prepare the champagne,” said Bernard Hinault at the start of the Sallanches World Cup. After seven and a half hours on the bike, hardening and attacking on each of the 20 climbs on the Côte de Domancy, he crossed his fingers behind his head and was proclaimed world champion to the delight of his compatriots. Behind the Cayman only 14 of the other 106 participants finished. “The cyclists were dropping like flies,” says Ramón Mendiburu, who was the Spanish coach.
It is unknown if Vingegaard uttered any similar phrase but the Jumbo-Visma, his team, can start to chill the champagne. A single ascent to the height, a twenty-kilometer race and just over half an hour at full speed, exactly 32m36s, were enough to put the Tour at his feet. To make it clear who is the greatest this 2023, to end the debate, to bury that uncomfortable asterisk that had been placed on him after his victory last year of temporary reign, almost regent of the throne of Pogacar. Not at all. There is a government and a boss for a while.
“Today you show the world who is the strongest,” his director yelled at him over the car radio. And he did. We had to wait for the 16th stage but an alien in yellow was seen. The only time trial was devastating. The entire peloton is stunned by the result. The Dane rode a minute and a half faster than the Slovenian from the UAE, who also risked and failed with the tactic of changing bikes (he left the goat and took the conventional one) to face the last 6 km of the stage, the height and the final part. “We thought the most convenient thing was that what the data told us,” argued Joxean Matxín, the manager of the UAE. “It is not an excuse for my performance,” confirmed Pogacar, perhaps affected by the heat and humidity.
The third of the day, his partner Wout van Aert, took off his hat watching the performance of the leader of the ranks. The Belgian, a locomotive, was almost three minutes behind the winner. Like Pello Bilbao, extraordinary, fourth. These are times reminiscent of the exhibitions in Luxembourg or Bergerac of a wonder named Miguel Indurain, a specialist, with a perfect physique.
But Vingegaard is lean, small, light. Nothing to see. He had never won an individual time trial on the Tour. In fact, in his entire career he only had one victory in the modality, in February of this year, in Santiago, in O Gran Camiño. But at a stroke he is alone at the top. He no longer has the haunting presence of his adversary stuck on his back. At last he has opened a world with his rival.
“It has been one of my best days on the bike ever”, he confessed, victorious. He was flying at such a speed that he was surprised, even doubted by technology, by the watt meter, the new religion of cycling. “He had such good legs that at one point I thought the power sensor was broken,” he added. His second Tour is closer, five stages, starting this Wednesday with the Col de la Loze. Pogacar’s third is far, far, almost two minutes behind the overall.
