Pogacar jumps with both feet on the Belles-Filles board – Liberation

Do we really have to go back down? Can’t we stay at the top, marveling at the expanse, on this mountain which dominates the valley and the Ballons des Vosges regional natural park? Can’t we lie down a little in the grass, dreaming of walks between the hardwoods, of games in the woods, of cabins built at the top of the fir trees to hide at night from wolves and during the day from hunters?

Why hit the road again? After his demonstration in an uphill sprint in Longwy on Thursday, the Pogacar swallow did it again today, again outclassing his opponents on the Belles-Filles board, where he had already won in 2020. He now has 35 seconds left. ahead of his first pursuer in the general classification, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, and, apart from a positive covid test, he seems invincible. If the trick is played, let’s stay there, let’s spend a moment chatting with the mistress of the place, the wooden statue of Jacques Pissenem, a chainsaw sculptor.

And then, in all honesty, the effort to get to the top is worth not coming down right away. To cover this stage, the journalist follower has two choices: go to a press room 25 kilometers from the finish and have TV and the internet to write his paper quietly. Or take a bus, choose to finish walking in the middle of the crowd, not seeing much, only imagining it and praying that the god of 4G will meet our expectations from the top of a sycamore maple.

The second solution is the only one that allows you to modestly capture, for a moment, the beauty of the place and that of the crowd. It gathers from the village of Plancher-les-Mines, the parasols erected, the camping chairs installed, the head under the Cochonou bob for the siesta, the posters to the glory of Thibault Pinot, the local of the stage, hung to the rocks as if it were a wall of a teenager’s room, yellow or polka-dot jerseys on their shoulders, skinny pensioners who rode bicycles, and children, on foot, playing hide and seek and stain their fingers with chalk.

lost children

The bravest, often younger, with the smell of sweat and pastis as pronounced as the smile on their faces, climbed to the very top, to the Super board of the Belles Filles. The upper portion was developed for the first time in 2019. It alternates white path, a bit like a beach entrance, and asphalt. The percentages, up to 24%, are indecent. Even on foot, you want to stagger, so suddenly the path is steep. Just imagining riding it makes you want to sit down and cry. And again, today, the weather was almost perfect, without rain, without mud, with a light wind sneaking through the trees to cool the bodies exhausted by the miles.

On stages like this, with only one real final difficulty, it’s all a matter of waiting. At the finish, you can hear the announcer in the distance doing some repairs for the sponsors of the Tour, playing the official anthem which is reminiscent of music from the Lord of the Rings and which contrasts oddly with the festive and colorful atmosphere. We learn that a breakaway took a few minutes in advance, not enough to hope for victory, with a former king of the Board, Dylan Teuns (Bahrain, the favorite team of French justice). During this time “little Julie has lost her parents and is waiting for them at the finish line” et “little Louis is looking for his grandpa and his grandpa is looking for him too”. «In general, we find everyone”says the voice coming out of the microphone, “we have never stored the equipment with a child who was left in nature”.

The helicopters of the gendarmerie and the TV which pass above us are a first sign. The runners are approaching. “They come to the plank, they come to the plank”, shouts a child. The crowd is pumped, the cowbells resound as much as the applause on the barriers. The mountain vibrates with a thud and, if the Tower came here for the first time and not the sixth in ten years, one would worry about waking a dragon which could sleep there within it.

“The last meters, you might as well go on foot”

In the breakaway, Lennard Kämna, a dancing German from La Bora, already performing well at the Giro, slips away from the small group. At 5 kilometers from the finish, he has a little more than a minute on a peloton, led by a suspicious UAE team, not very fast.

And «Noooon» of disappointment runs through the supporters like an electric shock. We understand that Thibault Pinot is let go, he who would dream of winning it, he who fears to take it on the Tour de France for the last time. As often in the mountains, the elimination is done from the back, with riders who crack as they go, including the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov.

Lennard Kämna, starts the last kilometer and in a normal mountain stage he would have won the race. But the last meters are terrible. The final bend is a dream leading to hell. The runners advance almost in slow motion and the crowd, which cannot see everything, is almost silent, until moving bodies appear and it is understood that Tadej Pogacar is in the wheel of Jonas Vingegaard. The Slovenian grills his politeness on the wire. The leaders cross the line one after the other, including Louis Meintjes, who puts his foot down (angry at so much effort?). No, I won’t give it one more pedal stroke, he seems to say. Matis Louvel, the Norman from Arkéa, will confide: “The last meters, you might as well go on foot, you go faster. In any case for the last…”

For the gathered supporters, the arrival does not sign the end but the beginning. There are so many tired couriers still arriving that the applause redoubles, especially when they are French. In the absence of Pinot in the leading roles, David Gaudu, 6th at the top, is particularly celebrated. He sticks out his tongue. He threw himself against the barriers. Almost fell asleep, like the sleeper in the valley, on the panniers of his Groupama team. Romain Bardet, who came 8th, sits on a camping chair, his mouth open. Vingegaard fell off his bike two meters after the finish. Pogacar, he had the strength to raise his arms. So goes the board of Les Belles Filles, which passes from one hero to another, and always, is conquered by the strongest.