The destination of the yellow jersey could be more or less assured, even with nine stages left, but the real intrigue in the Tour de France is the final make-up of the podium. If we’re to assume Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard will finish one and two, guessing who’ll be third is far harder.
Remco Evenepoel occupied that spot last year and is third again right now, but the Belgian ceded 3:35 to Pogačar on the Hautacam on stage 12 and was distanced on the penultimate climb. Though he did mount a spirited comeback, the signs from the first day in the high mountains is that the Soudal Quick-Step rider’s position on the podium is vulnerable.
And the vultures, for whom a third-placed finish at the Tour would be a career highlight, are circling.
Ahead of the next two days in the Pyrenees – one a mountain time trial and the other a summit finish on Superbagneres – just two minutes and 59 seconds separate Evenepoel in third and Tobias Halland Johannessen in eighth. Sandwiched between the pair are Florian Lipowitz, Kévin Vauquelin, Oscar Onley and Primož Roglič.
Very few people would have predicted Johannessen – despite being a former Tour de l’Avenir winner – Onley and Vauquelin being in the podium fight, but here they are. And it’s very much game on, especially after Matteo Jorgenson lost 10 minutes and Ben Healy fell from first to 11th.
“I was quite surprised on the first climb when I saw Remco and Jorgenson getting dropped,” 22-year-old Onley, in sixth place, said after the 12th stage. “I guess they suffered in the heat, but it’s still a long way to Paris and they’re certainly not out of it.”
His Picnic PostNL sports director, Matt Winston, has been preaching patience throughout this Tour, and he continues to do so. “We always said we weren’t going to throw time away,” he said, “and if we did lose time we’d focus on stages as our main goal.
“We were fifth on the stage today which is a nice stage result and after the time trial we’ll make a real assessment. When the GC guys are racing every day on the mountain stages, you have to keep focused. Moving up on the GC as part of that is a massive bonus.”
One place ahead of Onley, and crucially three places above his teammate Roglič, is Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe’s Lipowitz. The German, 24, was third on the day and looks to be the best of the rest among the climbers.
“I think we can be super happy,” he said. “We now have two guys who are super good on the GC, and that gives us a lot of opportunities in the next few days.” Roglič praised his younger teammate: “I”m really happy and hope he keeps this level up until the finish,” the veteran Slovenian said.
Vauquelin, meanwhile, is fifth, and he remains France’s biggest hope and interest. He proved on the Hautacam that he has the firepower to remain in the podium fight until the end.
“I’m happy to move up a gear,” he said. “It was really great. I’m very happy.” Second at the Tour de Suisse in June, the Arkéa-B&B Hotels rider credited an altitude training camp at Isola 2000 for preparing him for this year’s Tour. “I started to get a better understanding of the mountains when I was there. I worked a lot on my climbing. Mentally too, I think it was a mental barrier to overcome.”
The next two days in the Pyrenees will reorder the GC once more, but the race for the final podium place looks like being a captivating and topsy-turvy battle between six riders.
