Tour de France 2023: Tadej Pogacar back to winning ways as Jonas Vingegaard all but secures second triumph

Yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) and his erstwhile rival in white Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) put on another thrilling display as they went head-to-head for bragging rights in the Vosges on the penultimate day of the Tour.

Slovenia’s Pogacar came out on top from a select five-man group that contested the spoils with Vingegaard settling for third place behind his rival and Austria’s Felix Gall (AG2R-Citroen), with brothers Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) bringing up the rear.

Vingegaard may have missed out on a second stage win of the race, but the 26-year-old Dane will now be crowned Tour de France champion for a second year running after Sunday’s processional stage into Paris.

Separated by just 10-seconds going into the final week, Vingegaard’s sensational performance in Tuesday’s time trial – coupled with Pogacar cracking on the Col de la Loze one day later – means the defending champion will carry a whopping 7’29” lead heading onto the Champs-Elysees. It will be the biggest winning margin since Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali beat France’s Jean-Christophe Peraud by 7’39” in 2014.

An action-packed penultimate stage also saw Italian climber Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) secure the polka dot jersey, Adam Yates confirm his place on the final podium, and brother Simon rising to fourth place in the overall standings after Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) lost ground following an early crash.

But the performance of the day came from local rider Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) who dared to dream in his own back yard in what will probably be his last competitive appearance in the race after a long and illustrious career.

Pinot, who is due to retire at the end of the season, bridged over to the day’s breakaway before soloing through a sea of his own supporters and over the summit of the penultimate climb, the Petit Ballon, in pole position in scenes that sent shivers down the spine.

The swashbuckling Frenchman was ultimately caught on the final climb, the Col du Platzerwasel, once an attack from Pogacar behind spurred a reaction from his yellow shadow, Vingegaard, and the in-form Austrian Gall. The trio were caught by the Yates brothers after the summit before the quintet rode the last 5km together ahead of a champagne finale.

Working for his UAE team leader, Adam Yates led out the final sprint before Vingegaard took the initiative with an initial jump on the ramped finale at Le Markstein Fellering. But Pogacar used his superior kick to return to winning ways with a second stage win to draw a line under what has been a tough third week for the double champion.

“Today I finally felt like myself again,” Pogacar said. “It was just really good from start to finish to feel good again after many days suffering and to pull it off at the finish. I’m super, super happy.”

With six sizable climbs packed into a parcours of just 133.5km, the shortest road stage of the 110th edition was enlivened with an early attack from Belgian team-mates Victor Campenaerts and Jasper De Buyst. If the Lotto Dstny duo held a slender lead going onto the Ballon d’Alsace climb, that was primarily down to the sterling work of Ciccone’s Lidl-Trek team.

The first half of the stage was indeed all about the polka dots, with Ciccone taking maximum points over the first four climbs – celebrating the decisive summit of Cat.3 Col de la Schlucht as if he had just won the stage. Although there still remained another 55km, Ciccone had become the first Italian since Claudio Chiappucci in 1992 to be crowned king of the mountains – provided he can make through Sunday’s final stage unscathed.

Beyond the polka-dot subplot there was no shortage of talking points, with Spain’s Rodriguez and the American Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) both going down hard on tight corner on the first descent. Stage 14 winner Rodriguez would slip to fifth in the overall standings while Kuss surrendered his place in the top 10 by dropping to 13th after finishing over 20 minutes behind.

Frenchman Pinot kept his powder dry until the third climb when he joined a chase group near the summit alongside Groupama-FDJ team-mate Valentin Madouas, the French champion. After a shake out on the fourth climb, 10 riders came to the front with a slender lead of just over a minute on the main pack, which was being led by the UAE and Jumbo teams of the so-called Big Two.

Riding in this move alongside Ciccone and his dependable Danish team-mate Mattias Skjelmose were Pinot and Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), Kevin Vermaerke (Team dsm-firmenich), Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic) and Maxim van Gils (Lotto Dstny).

With the main pack closing in, Pinot struck out with 31km to go on the Petit Ballon – his favourite training climb and one that bears a corner named in his honour. Indeed, it was around the “Virage Pinot” where the 33-year-old’s fanclub were present to cheer on their idol as he rode like a man possessed in pursuit of a fairytale win.

Pinot held a gap of 30 seconds over the summit over a chasing trio of Pidcock, Barguil and Harper, with the streamline yellow jersey group – from which Frenchman David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) soon crashed out – passing over another 30 seconds back.

The gap was not enough but Pinot treated the Tour to a true goosebump moment as an entire mountain erupted in unison to pay their respects to one of the most romantic riders of his generation. It was not the reward he envisaged, but Pinot will now enter Paris for the final time with the gold number as the most combative rider on Sunday – an apt consolation prize for a rider who had finished runner-up on five occasions this season.

After Barguil and Pidcock joined him on the front on the final climb, Pinot’s fate was sealed when Pogacar’s attack behind blew the yellow jersey group apart. Only Vingegaard and the Stage 17 winner Gall were able to follow the acceleration of the white jersey – with the Yates brothers soon joining forces in pursuit.

Three became six and then three again after Pinot, Barguil and Pidcock were all cast aside – the latter dropping back to help pace bloodied team-mate Rodriguez, whose place in the top five was under threat from Spain’s Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious).

The impressive Gall led the leaders over the summit of Le Platzerwasel but soon became frustrated by the antics of Vingegaard, who seemed more concerned with sandbagging Pogacar than doing any pacing on the front. The Yateses soon joined as the road continued upwards and then along a rolling plateau to the finish.

The arrival of Adam Yates played into the hands of Pogacar, who was able to benefit from the pacing of a team-mate before powering to the line to secure a fine second win to end a disappointing final week on a high. It was the 11th stage win of the Slovenian’s career, the 24-year-old also securing the white jersey for the fourth successive year.

But the biggest prize went to Vingegaard who quietly slipped off to celebrate what will be a emphatic second successive Tour crown with his wife and young daughter – levelling the scores at two all between him and Pogacar ahead of a fifth set next July.

The Tour finishes on Sunday with the processional 115km Stage 21 to Paris, which culminates with the traditional eight laps of the famous Champs-Elysees circuit for the last time until 2025. Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) will be favourite to take a fifth win in the green jersey, with next year’s Tour due to finish in Nice owing to the clash with the Paris Olympics.