logo
Tadej Pogacar out to bury the ghosts of his past in final Tour de France week

Tadej Pogacar out to bury the ghosts of his past in final Tour de France week

Independent5 days ago
Tadej Pogacar is riding not just for the yellow jersey on the Tour de France, but also to bury the ghosts of his past.
As the 2025 Tour de France heads into its final and most punishing mountain stages, the defending champion is about to tackle climbs where he cracked or struggled before.
The Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze await again - but this time, things feel different.
"I'm almost confident to say the route was designed to scare me," Pogacar said with a smile on Monday.
"But I always look at it as a race situation. I actually like all of these climbs."
This year, he has already won at Hautacam, where his Tour hopes vanished in 2022 when he was beaten by chief rival Jonas Vingegaard, who ended up 2:10 behind the Slovenian.
Pogacar is 4:13 ahead of the Dane in the general classification as he marches towards a fourth Tour title.
In his sixth campaign, Pogacar speaks with the assurance of a man determined to make peace with painful memories.
"Col de la Loze, for me, is one of the hardest climbs I've ever done," he conceded. "I'm not looking for revenge. I just want to have better legs than those days in the past."
In 2023, Pogacar experienced what he then called the 'worst day' of his life on a bike when he cracked in the ascent of the Col de la Loze, effectively losing the Tour to Vingegaard.
While the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider appears firmly in control, Pogacar knows better than anyone that one bad day can change everything.
Although Vingegaard has suffered two rare off days, he insists he is not out of contention.
"I do think I can win it. Of course, it looks very hard now, it's a big gap," the Dane said. "But normally my strength is in the third week. We have to attack."
Vingegaard, however, has no illusions about the challenge ahead.
"The biggest difference is my two off days, where I lost most of the time," he said. "But I don't think the gap is as big as it looks. I know that's not my level. I can do a lot better than that.
"I'm also willing to sacrifice second to try to achieve first."
Visma-Lease a Bike's sports director Grischa Niermann underlined the urgency of the mission.
"It's four minutes - you don't make that up with an attack in the last 500 metres," Niermann said. "For that to happen, we need to see a weakness in Tadej. So far, he hasn't shown one. But the Tour is over only when we reach Paris."
Visma-Lease a Bike, however, seem to have lost the collective power that made them a formidable squad in 2022 and 2023, when Vingegaard won his two Tour titles.
"They tend to overtrain their riders and after two or three years, they're completely empty," a senior official in another Tour team told Reuters.
"They have plans, but don't have the capacities to execute them. They should be more humble."
Pogacar is ready for anything that might come at him.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Jonas Vingegaard has lost belief he can beat Tadej Pogacar
Jonas Vingegaard has lost belief he can beat Tadej Pogacar

Times

time29 minutes ago

  • Times

Jonas Vingegaard has lost belief he can beat Tadej Pogacar

Hindsight allows us to see with greater clarity. As a contest, the Tour de France ended on the day it was meant to begin. That was the first truly mountainous race to Hautacam, the 12th of 21 stages. It was the moment Tadej Pogacar chose to remind his adversaries they were wasting their time. He will clinch his fourth Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées at tea-time on Sunday but the outcome was known for ten days. Pogacar is the greatest rider of this generation and there are good ­reasons for considering him the best of all time. When he races, things ­happen. He has, after all, won 21 ­stages of the Tour de France and yet the victory at Hautacam ten days ago was still exceptional. For months this was the stage he had targeted, believing it would give him the Yellow Jersey and with the help of his team, they would keep it. Unexpected things happen in the Tour and the day before Hautacam Pogacar crashed close to the finish in Toulouse. It was a high-speed fall where for a frightening second, it seemed his head was about to collide with a 9in roadside kerb. Luckily he instinctively got his head up and just missed the kerb. Still it was a heavy fall and he felt beaten up. Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager. That was purely physical. 'Tadej is mentally very strong,' UAE doctor Adrian Rotunno said at the Base Camp Lodge Hotel in Albertville on Friday night. 'We were worried about the impact of that fall. He wasn't.' Hautacam is a 13.5-kilometre climb at an average gradient of 7.8 per cent. This puts it up there with the toughest ascents. They had barely hit Hautacam when Pogacar got team-mates Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narváez to increase the tempo. They knew the plan because both — Narváez ­especially — went so fast it seemed they had lost their minds. Only Pogacar and his forever rival, Jonas Vingegaard, could follow ­Narváez's infernal pace. Of course he could not keep it up for long and when he pulled to one side, Pogacar went even faster. Vingegaard tried to stay with him and for a kilometre or so, he stayed at ten and 12 seconds back. Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager. The problem for any rider chasing Pogacar is that if the Slovenian wants to gain time, he does not let up. Takes a short breather and he goes again. He extends his lead, another breather and goes again. No relenting until he has crossed the line and there is no more time to be taken. At Hautacam he arrived 2min 10sec before Vingegaard, the first time in their five-year rivalry that he had taken more than two minutes on the Dane in a stage of the Tour. That gave him an overall lead of 3:31. He tagged on another 36 seconds in the next day's mountain time trial and then, truly, the race was over. This is not a bike rider who loses a lead of four minutes in the Tour. Something else died on Hautacam; namely, the intense rivalry between Pogacar and Vingegaard. Again with the benefit of hindsight we could argue this had happened at the previous month's Critérium du Dauphiné. On three mountain stages Pogacar toyed with his rival. And if there were any doubts about his ­superiority after the Critérium, they were banished on Hautacam. This led to a certain desperation about Visma-Lease a Bike's approach to the Tour. They set out to upset Pogacar, to do whatever they could to get under his skin. Their difficulty was finding a way. Their leader Vingegaard rode ­aggressively from the start which was unusual because the hilly stages of the first week did not play to his strengths. It was clear though that Vingegaard was riding strongly, ­perhaps as well as he has ever done. But on the short, sharp hills into ­Boulogne, Rouen, Vire-Normandie and Mûr-de-Bretagne, he could not hurt Pogacar. On every stage that Vingegaard ­finished alongside or just behind Pogacar, he was visibly pleased. That suggested he was content to just hang in there. His team sought to play with Pogacar's head. Their riders attacked not to break away but merely to ­provoke a reaction from him. He did react and when he realised what they were doing, he thought it ridiculous. Matteo Jorgenson got in his way at a feed zone on the seventh stage and that led to a little pushing match. On Friday's stage to La Plagne, Vingegaard refused to work with Pogacar to rein in the breakaway ­Thymen Arensman and that infuriated Pogacar. He ended up letting Arensman take the stage because he was not going to tow Vingegaard up to the breakaway. He also squandered his own chance of winning that stage. Visma wanted to get inside his head and they succeeded. At what cost to themselves? The operation was a ­success but the patient died. From this Tour, we learned why Pogacar loves racing against Mathieu van der Poel and why he chooses to ride the one-day Classics: Flanders, Roubaix, Strade Bianche, Flèche ­Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. In these races, there is not the time or indeed the inclination to play what Pogacar sees as silly games. Visma have some soul-searching to do. They started the Tour protesting total allegiance to Vingegaard only to start looking for stage victories as soon as they thought their man was not going to beat Pogacar. What is ­certain is that Vingegaard no longer believes he can beat his rival. In this year's Tour, he has performed better than when beating Pogacar in 2022 and 2023. Last year was dispiriting for him. This year was worse. There were moments in the race when, sitting right behind Pogacar after he had attacked Vingegaard looked to check on those directly behind him. He is now as concerned by the riders creeping up on him as he is by one riding away from him. He knows that in a year's time, the ­German Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and the Scot Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) will believe they can challenge Pogacar. Lipowitz and Onley battled for the third step on the podium and even though the German got there, Onley will not be discouraged. At 22, he is two years younger than his rival and he showed he belongs at this level. From a promising third place in last month's Tour de Suisse to fourth in the Tour de France with eight top-ten finishes is some leap. The penultimate stage from Nantua to Pontarlier sent the peloton through the Jura, a 184-kilometre route that had four not overly severe climbs but the weather was horrible and the race difficult. An early break got a gap and they had the day to themselves. Jake Stewart, a British rider with Israel ­Premier Tech, was there and when the French rider Romain Grégoire and the Spaniard Iván Romeo crashed heavily 21 kilometres from the finish, Stewart found himself with just the Australian Kaden Groves and the Dutch rider Frank van den Broek at the front of the race. Hope did not last long as 16 kilometres from Portarlier, Groves attacked out of the group of three and went steadily clear all the way to the finish. It was a fine performance from the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider. Stewart finished sixth on the stage, his best result so far and now he will finish his first Tour de France. On his way to a fourth Tour victory, Pogacar was asked how this one compared to the others: 'Every year we say, 'This is the hardest Tour ever, the hardest I've ever done' but honestly, this year's Tour was something on another level,' he said. 'I think there was one day where we went a bit ­easier. Even today, we were almost all out from start to ­finish. Even though it was the hardest Tour, one of the toughest races I've ever done, I enjoyed it because I had good shape and good legs. But I am really looking forward to the last day in Paris.' Pogacar plans to take Monday off but says he will be back on his bike on Tuesday. There was some joy for Visma-Lease a Bike on Saturday as their veteran Dutch rider Marianne Vos won the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes with a brilliant late attack. The 38-year-old overtook her team-mate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot approaching the line in Plumelec, and then held off Mauritian rider Kim Le Court in the closing metres of a gruelling uphill finish. Ferrand-Prévot looked set to win the 78.8km stage, but the Frenchwoman attacked too early and could not withstand the late surge from Vos.

Leeds make Lyon goalkeeper Perri seventh signing
Leeds make Lyon goalkeeper Perri seventh signing

BBC News

time42 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Leeds make Lyon goalkeeper Perri seventh signing

Goalkeeper Lucas Perri said it was a "dream come true" to join Leeds United after becoming the club's seventh summer 27-year-old Brazilian has joined from French side Lyon in a deal worth a reported £15.6m and has agreed a four-year contract at Elland played 45 matches across all competitions for Lyon last season, keeping 13 clean sheets as the Ligue 1 side qualified for European football."It is incredible. It is a dream come true," said the 6ft 5in keeper. "When I first heard that the interest could get something serious and actually happen, I started to look for videos of the stadium, the atmosphere, the games, the highlights of the plays and the matches."It was a really exciting moment for me. I was really, really glad that the club showed interest. It was incredible. To sign here I am very, very happy."Perri began his career at Sao Paulo before moving to Botafogo and then to has been capped at under-20 and under-23 level for his Illan Meslier was Leeds' number one for most of last season as they won the Championship title, but lost his place to Karl Darlow with seven games remaining following a series of errors.

Vos wins opening stage of Tour de France Femmes
Vos wins opening stage of Tour de France Femmes

BBC News

time42 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Vos wins opening stage of Tour de France Femmes

Dutch cyclist Marianne Vos won the first stage of the Tour de France Femmes for her 258th career overtook Visma-Lease a Bike team-mate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot in the final metres of the 78.8km route, which began in Vannes and ended with a climb on the Cote de Cadoudal in then outpaced Mauritian Kim Le Court-Pienaar to win the stage with Frenchwoman Ferrand-Prevot finishing in 38-year-old said to take the yellow jersey was "really special", and added: "It's the Tour de France, it's the first day, you really can't describe what it means."Defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma Phinney finished the day in fourth rider Marlen Reusser, who was expected to be among the challengers following her runner-up finishes at the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta, abandoned the race with stomach problems following a crash at the foot of the Cote de second stage takes in a 110.4km route from Brest to Quimper. Stage one results Marianne Vos (Ned/Visma-Lease a Bike) 1hr 53mins 3secsKim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau/AG Insurance-Soudal Team) same timePauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra/Visma-Lease a Bike) Katarzyna Niewiadoma Phinney (Pol/Canyon-Sram Zondacrypto)Demi Vollering (Ned/FDJ-Suez) +3secsPuck Pieterse (Ned/Fenix-Deceuninck) +5secsAnna van der Breggen (Ned/Team SD Worx-Protime) same timeEline Jansen (Ned/Volkerwessels Cycling Team) +9secsPauliena Rooijakkers (Ned/Fenix-Deceuninck) same timePfeiffer Georgi (GB/Team Picnic Postnl)

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store