Plancher-les-Mines (France) (AFP)
A coup d'etat on D-1: Tadej Pogacar dethroned Primoz Roglic on Saturday, after his landslide victory in the time trial of La Planche des Belles Filles, 20th and penultimate stage of a Tour de France of which he is about to become the youngest post-war winner.
Before the last stage, a formality intended for sprinters, Pogacar is 59 seconds ahead of his elder brother.
The podium is completed by the Australian Richie Porte (3rd), who will also be present for the first time on the podium, from which he dislodged the Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez.
In 36.2 kilometers, Pogacar pulled off the perfect shot: he won the stage, his third success since the start, donned the yellow jersey, kept the white best youngster jersey (he will celebrate his 22nd birthday on Monday) and conquered the best climber polka dot jersey.
But the most astonishing performance of the Slovenian of the UAE Emirates team, which is running its second season among professionals and discovering the Tour de France, comes from the masterful slap to the strongest team of the peloton, the Dutch Jumbo, so far. there dominatrix on this Tour.
- The collapse of Jumbo -
Jumbo made an unnecessary group shot in this time trial, the only one in the 2020 Tour. Roglic finished 5th in the stage, 1 min 56 sec behind Pogacar.
The Dutchman Tom Dumoulin, second, conceded 1 min 21 sec to the winner (in the same second as Richie Porte) and the Belgian Wout van Aert, still as impressive, took fourth place, at 1 min 31 sec.
Stunned, like unbelievers, Dumoulin and van Aert witnessed the triumphant arrival of Pogacar, which meant collapse for their formation, which based its strategy on Roglic alone, leading the Tour since leaving the Pyrenees (9th stage) .
Such a reversal of the situation had not happened in the Tour since the memorable edition of 1989, when the American Greg LeMond had dispossessed Laurent Fignon of the yellow jersey on the last day in the "stopwatch" ending on the Champs-Elysées.
Roglic, 30, has consistently lagged behind Pogacar.
From 13 seconds to the first intermediate score (Km 14.5), the gap increased to 36 seconds, at the foot of the final 5.9 km long climb.
"I don't realize, it's going to take a while," Pogacar replied, almost groggy.
"I have the feeling that my head is going to explode. I was already happy at the start, with my second place, and now I have the yellow jersey!"
- Unexpected outcome -
"I had information through the headset, I listened to the instructions of the teams. But, after taking over Miguel Angel Lopez (who left two minutes before him), I no longer took care of the gaps. I went there. full throttle. During the ascent, I couldn't hear anything, the spectators were making too much noise! ", continued the Slovenian.
“Honestly, I didn't think I could take all that time back from Roglic. He must have had a bad day. But I didn't think I could do it. It was when he crossed the line that I realized that I 'was going to win the Tour,' Pogacar triumphed.
On the way to becoming the second youngest winner of the Tour, after the Frenchman Henri Cornet, winner on the green carpet in 1904 during the second edition of the event, Pogacar only has to unwind on Sunday for the 122 kilometers of the last stage between Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines) and the Champs-Elysées.
For Slovenia, including President Borut Pahor, has planned to come to the Champs-Elysées, it will be the first victory in the Tour anyway.
One of the most astonishing also in history, both by the unforeseen scenario and by the final result for the benefit of one of the youngest of the peloton, even younger than the Colombian Egan Bernal (22 years old in 2019) to whom he should succeed the charts.
© 2020 AFP