Lennard Kämna struggled up the steep ramps in the Alps and had to bury his dream of the yellow jersey when the dominator Tadej Pogacar crashed sensationally. The German hopeful, who had missed the maillot jaune by just eleven seconds in Megève the day before, was at the end of his strength in the first major Alpine showdown of the 109th Tour de France on Wednesday.
And the patron also showed amazing weaknesses: Pogacar, the triumphant of 2020 and 2021, lost a full 2:51 minutes to the victorious rival Jonas Vingegaard, who was yellow for the first time at 2413 meters. From a German point of view, Simon Geschke saved his mountain jersey for another day over the high mountain giants.
But the top riders in the industry provided the splendid spectacle at around 30 degrees – and that’s when the tour experienced a huge surprise. With 4.5 kilometers to go, Vingegaard attacked. Pogacar tried to counter, but nothing worked with the seemingly invincible. Geraint Thomas, Romain Bardet, David Gaudu or Nairo Quintana – all of the favorites left Pogacar on the mountain. The Slovenian staggered precariously, his jersey completely torn open.
At 2:22, Pogacar is now third overall behind Vingegaard, who single-handedly won the stage ahead of Quintana and Bardet. Bardet is now second overall, 2:16 behind the man from Hillerslev in the far north. “I’m not giving up. I’ll try to keep at it as long as possible,” Kämna said before the start in the former Olympic city of Albertville. But the undertaking was already over at the Col du Télégraphe, a good 67 kilometers from the finish. Kämna had to let the favorites go with a heavy step, on the climb to the 2642 meter high Col du Galibier the North German was already more than four minutes behind.
“It’s just difficult when you were in the breakaway groups before. That takes a lot of energy,” said Kämna. The 25-year-old was therefore no longer in sight at the big spectacle at the front. With Pogacar isolated from his teammates, the Jumbo Visma team launched the grand assault on the Tour patron. Primoz Roglic and Vingegaard took turns attacking the yellow jersey again and again, but Pogacar just couldn’t be shaken off at the time. Instead, Roglic had to pay tribute to the pace himself and fell behind.
Once again, veteran Geschke delivered a courageous performance. The 36-year-old Berliner was again in the breakaway group, fought his way over the Télégraphe in third place and over the Galibier in second. That was enough to successfully defend his coveted white dress with the red dots. This means that Geschke can tackle the 21 most famous hairpin bends in the world in mountain jersey on Thursday, when it goes up to the legendary Alpe d’Huez ski station.
Hundreds of thousands of fans will line up again on the 13.8 kilometer long final ascent with an average gradient of 8.1 percent and ensure a madhouse. But even before that, the stage has it all. After the start in Briancon, it’s back over the Galibier and the Col de la Croix de Fer, all mountains of the highest category.
