BarcelonaThe organizers of the Tour had hoped that the time trial of the penultimate stage, between the towns of Capelle-Marival and Rocamadour (40.7 km), would serve to decide the race. When they presented a course with a lot of mountains, however, they knew that there was a possibility that the champion of the last two editions, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, had decided the general classification earlier. Things from life, the one who reached the time trial with the triumph neck down was the 24-year-old Dane Jonas Vingegaard, who today has finished certifying that this Sunday he will walk around Paris dressed in yellow in a big party of the Dutch team Jumbo-Visma . If Vingegaard wins the overall, the penultimate stage has crowned his teammate Wout van Aert, surely the funniest cyclist of the moment. A man capable of winning in cyclocross, in mud, on cobblestones, in mountain stages and in time trials. Van Aert, who has won three stages in this edition of the Tour, ended up crying while hugging Vingegaard. And Jumbo-Visma will, of course, win the team classification.
At the age of 27, Van Aert has already won nine stages of the Tour. In addition, he will finish the competition with the green jersey of regularity and with the condition of the most combative cyclist of an edition that curiously began on Danish soil, when almost everyone expected the champion to be Pogacar. In the end it was Vingegaard, who started the Tour with the fond memory of last year’s second place, but sharing the status of team leader with the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who between falls and covid-19 never has been in good form this year. Despite Roglic not being able to finish the Tour, Jumbo-Visma has confirmed that it has the most complete team at the moment and has dominated the race at all times thanks to men like Van Aert who took 19 seconds to win the time trial in Vingegaard. The Dane had to defend the three minutes he took from Tadej Pogacar in the general classification and, in fact, the Slovenian, instead of cutting seconds, ended up losing them and finished third, 27 seconds behind Wout van Aert.
The Belgian, by the way, had worked hard to help Vingegaard in the last mountain stage, in the Hautacam. And in the time trial it felt like the Dane didn’t just give everything in the last meters, to make sure that the stage would be won by his sacrificed teammate, who gave the Jumbo-Visma the sixth stage win in this Tour.
Enric Mas, positive for covid-19
The Dane will be the second rider from this country to win the Tour, with a final margin of 3:34 over Pogacar, winner of the two previous editions, and 8:13 ahead of the British Geraint Thomas (INEOS), the winner 2018. The Welshman will be on the Paris podium for the third time in his career. French pride is saved by David Gaudu, fourth ahead of the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov, who in the time trial has overtaken the Colombian veteran Nairo Quintana in the general. Mallorcan Enric Mas has finally failed to finish among the top ten in a Tour in which he has not achieved a single stage win. The runner from Artà, who was in eleventh place overall, has tested positive for covid-19 and has retired.
