Tour de France: Michal Kwiatkowski wins atop Grand Colombier as Tadej Pogacar trims gap to Jonas Vingegaard

It was not until Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) had raised his arms aloft to celebrate his superb solo victory in Stage 13 that Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) finally pulled the trigger on the Grand Colombier. In the end, it proved a lot of effort for just eight seconds.

Pogacar’s last-ditch attack distanced the yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) in the closing 450 metres of the stage – and although the Slovenian powered past the remnants of the breakaway to take four bonus seconds for third place, his rival limited his losses over the line to the same gap. Small beer, considering how many matches UAE Team Emirates burned in controlling the stage all day.

Two-time Tour winner Pogacar moved within nine seconds of the defending champion Vingegaard’s yellow jersey ahead of three tough days in the mountains and Tuesday’s hilly individual time trial. Whether Pogacar’s gradual time gains this past week will mean anything at the end of the Tour remains to be seen; but it is certainly setting the scene nicely for a ding-dong dual in the Alps between the men in yellow and white.

Veteran domestique Kwiatkowski gave Ineos Grenadiers their second win in succession on Bastille Day, the 33-year-old proving the strongest of a 20-man break that formed after a ferocious opening hour of racing. Belgium’s Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny) was the only other escapee to avoid being caught. He crossed the line 47 seconds down and just ahead of Pogacar.

A year to the day after his memorable win at Alpe d’Huez, Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) took fifth place ahead of Australia’s Jai Hindley (Bora-hansgrohe). Hindley retained his third place in the GC but is now 2’51” down on Vingegaard, who will be happy that UAE could not exploit their numerical advantage better.

Pogacar had team-mates Marc Soler, Felix Grossschartner, Rafal Majka and Adam Yates all working for him on the final climb, with Vingegaard riding with just the American Sepp Kuss after Wilco Kelderman and Dylan van Baarle faded. Kuss was able to neutralise a move from Yates with around 2km remaining before Pogacar put in his last-ditch attack to remind Vingegaard of his lurking threat without making him really pay.

The highest French finisher on the national holiday of Quatorze Juillet was David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) in sixteenth place. Gaudu’s compatriot and team-mate Thibaut Pinot conceded his place in the top 10 to Kuss while another Groupama rider, Quentin Pacher, was the last French man standing from the break after attacking at the start of the Grand Colombier, but to little fanfare save for a few kilometres to savour in the memory bank.

Separated by just one second in the standings, Yates and his twin brother Simon, of Jayco-AlUla, both rose one place to fifth and sixth respectively after Spain’s Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) was tailed off from the GC group near the top of the magnificent climb.

But the day belonged to Kwiatkowski who admitted afterwards that he never expected he would get the chance to contest for the win, given the race situation behind.

“Obviously I had a nice advantage on the final climb,” he said. “It was a crazy experience, to be honest. When I entered the breakaway, I thought this was just a free ticket to maybe the bottom of the climb or something like that. I never thought this group would fight for the stage victory because UAE were pulling pretty hard in the pack.

“I guess it’s not very easy to chase 19 guys rotating on the flat for more than 100km. I think they let too many guys in the break and I just found probably the best legs I ever had in my life.”

When Kwiatkowski first won a stage on the Tour de France it was a gift from his then team-mate Richard Carapaz just days after their leader Egan Bernal had withdrawn after cracking on the Grand Colombier.

On Friday, in front of a baying home crowd celebrating France’s national holiday, Kwiatkowski brought his contrasting experiences in the Jura mountains full circle by winning on that same mythical peak.

The Pole found himself in a 20-man move that formed during a frantic opening hour of racing in the 138km stage from Chatillon-Sur-Chalaronne. Just three Frenchmen – Pacher, Adrien Petit (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) and Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) – managed to join the move on Bastille Day, giving the hosts little hope of a first French win on 14 July since Warren Barguil in 2017.

Also in the move were Alberto Bettiol and James Shaw (both EF Education-EasyPost), Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep), Matej Mohoric and Fred Wright (both Bahrain Victorious), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Mike Teunissen and Georg Zimmermann (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Hugo Houle (Israel-PremierTech), Luca Mozzato (Arkea-Samsic), Pascal Eenkhoorn and Van Gils (Lotto Dstny), Cees Bol and Harold Tejada (both Astana Qazaqstan), and Anthon Charmig (Uno-X).

With UAE committing bodies to the chase on the flat 80km ride towards the first uphill test of the day, the break’s lead hovered around the 1’30” mark, giving no escapee much hope of holding out.

But the uncategorised climb up to the intermediate sprint – and the sweeping descent that followed – provided a springboard for the break, whose lead crept up towards the four-minute mark ahead of the summit showdown on the Grand Colombier.

Second at Puy de Dome, Latour was just the kind of rider who, in theory, could have benefited from this change in fortune – but the Frenchman found himself tailed off on the descent, and forced to expend energy in a fruitless chase on the valley road ahead of the climb.

With Latour’s self-flagellation, it looked like French hopes had been scuppered. But Pacher provided hope with an early attack on the 17.4km climb to open up a gap as the breakaway fragmented behind.

Kwiatkowski was initially unable to latch onto a chase group of Shaw, Tejada and Van Gils, the Pole forced to battle back with Mohoric in tow before kicking on solo with around 12km remaining.

At this point the win was still very much in the balance. Not only did he have the chasers to content with, but the UAE train tapping out tempo three minutes behind to whittle down the yellow jersey group.

But Kwiatkowski rode with heart and steady legs – stretching his lead over the trio behind to one minute with 5km remaining. And for all UAE’s effort behind, the GC group could not come within two minutes of the lone leader.

If Kwiatkowski held on for a memorable win, Pogacar’s late attack at least spiced things up momentarily – and gave the Slovenian hope with another small time gain over his rival Vingegaard.

“Winning at the top of a mountain like Grand Colombier is amazing,” Kwiatkowski said. “I had memories of being here with Egan Bernal thinking about quitting the race [in 2020], so that was bad memories for us.”

Back then, Kwiatkowski rebounded from the disappointment by riding to a famous one-two with team-mate Carapaz at La Roche-sur-Foron.

“With Richard that was also a different feeling because that was full gas racing from start to the finish,” he recalled. “In the end we could enjoy the last 15km together. But today the last effort was probably the hardest in my life. I managed it well but it was hard. Without the fans it wouldn’t have been possible – they were driving me to the finish, it was an amazing feeling.”

Separated by just nine seconds, Vingegaard and Pogacar will take their intriguing battle for yellow into the Alps on Saturday in Stage 14 from Annemasse to Morzine, a 152km test that features five categorised climbs including the HC Col de la Joux Plane before a fast descent to the finish.

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