In the Book of Genesis, God rested on the seventh day. There is no suggestion that He was tired but rather that He wanted to look over all He had created. The latter-day gods of the Tour de France had to wait longer for rest, theirs coming on the tenth day. From them too, there is no admission of tiredness. Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard all claim to be just fine and looking forward to the 12 days of racing that remain.
It is not without thinking that Primoz Roglic’s name has been omitted from the list of contenders. He is 1min 36sec down on the race leader Pogacar, which is not insurmountable, but too often in the first week Roglic was distanced when the race was at its most intense. Now 34, he is not going to get better.
Evenepoel’s form is as good as perhaps it’s ever been. His attacking spirit has enlivened the race as he offers himself as a candidate for best supporting actor to Pogacar. Riding the Tour for the first time, Evenepoel, 24, showed up with the modesty and reverence of a first-year pupil at boarding school.
Modesty, though, is not really his style and neither is one for watching his Ps and Qs. In the heat of his strong performances, the modesty and good manners withered quickly. After Sunday’s gravel stage, he couldn’t help himself. “We have to accept race tactics and race situations, but sometimes you also need the balls to race, and unfortunately maybe Jonas [Vingegaard] didn’t have them today. But it’s no problem — the race is still very long, and I totally accept the reasons why he didn’t pull, why he didn’t race.”
A rest day at the Tour is, of course, a relative concept. All riders go for a short training spin, they all get their massage and the top riders must attend to media duties. That meant Vingegaard responding to his rival’s jibe. The question amused more than it irritated.
“We were mainly focused on not losing time,” Vingegaard said matter-of-factly. “If I had gone with those two [Pogacar and Evenepoel] and they had left me behind, I would have lost the Tour yesterday. It wasn’t a lack of ‘balls’, I just rode smart.” Being by far the lightest of the three heavyweights, Vingegaard was at a disadvantage on the gravel and if there’s one thing he’s not, it’s stupid.
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As impressive as Evenepoel has been, few consider he is ready to beat his two principal rivals. Pogacar was asked close to 20 questions in his press conference and most included the name Vingegaard. How do you think he’s going? Very well. Are you afraid of him? No. Do you think he is trying to undermine you mentally? If he is, he won’t succeed. Is he afraid of you? Yes. Geraint Thomas was asked who he thought most likely to win the Tour. Vingegaard, he said, would be his favourite.
“There’s a lot of long climbs at the end of the Tour and it won’t be about the punch [Pogacar’s strength] then, it’ll be a totally different race. So from next weekend, I think it [the route] favours Jonas,” Thomas said. “We saw what happened last year so I think Visma will be quietly confident about where Vingegaard is right now.”
On and off the bike, Pogacar is charismatic. He enjoys the cut and thrust of racing, especially when circumstances allow him to attack. Yet in the past two Tours, Vingegaard has beaten him decisively. There was a legitimate excuse for last year’s defeat as Pogacar lost preparation time after his crash and fractured wrist at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
This time, it is Vingegaard’s preparation that has been compromised by a bad crash and multiple injuries in April. That reduced his preparation time to six weeks. While the Dane was cramming for his Tour examination, Pogacar was sauntering to victory in the Giro d’Italia by almost ten minutes. If Vingegaard could win off the back of a disrupted preparation, how could Pogacar ever imagine beating him at the Tour? The Slovenian has to win.
Mark Cavendish has won the sprint he had to win, for his 35th victory and the outright record for most stages won, at Saint-Vulbas six days ago. Such was his acceleration and margin of victory that it was easy to believe he would be contesting every bunch sprint. There have been two bunch sprints since, and though his Astana-Qazaqstan team worked hard to get him into position, Cavendish wasn’t there in the end.
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As for a 36th or 37th, it doesn’t matter. He’s given us far more than ever we deserved and if there’s one wish for the next 13 days, it is only that he gets safely to the finish in Nice. In this race no one should take the act of completion for granted.