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It was just an instant, they were just a couple of meters away.

's wild lashes

seemed to finally achieve its goal.

, an example of concentration and endurance, lost the slipstream.

And then the Slovenian pushed even harder, the watts to the limit, the thighs on fire;

but as in the worst of his tortures, he soon verified that his yellow shadow was still there.

He was going to continue all the way to the top, although perhaps all his hopes had been left in that last unsuccessful display.

Or later in the fall going down.

As he recognized later, "there is no better way to lose a Tour."

In Paris he will escort, together with

, the amazing Dane who interrupted his reign.

Since on the way to the Granon, in the first important stage of the Tour, the Jumbo Visma signed one of the most amazing strategies that the world of cycling remembers, Vingegaard has had to withstand up to 15 attacks from his enraged rival.

Three the next day at Alpe d'Huez, one starting at Saint Etienne, another at the Mende wall, three more at Port de Lens, another at Val Louron and all six yesterday at Spandelles.

Not once did he tremble, in an unparalleled exercise of resistance that elevates him to the sky of the great climbers.

Like after every stage, the first thing Jonas did was pick up his cell phone and call his girlfriend and daughter.

His "two girls."

"This morning I told them I was going to try to win for them," he revealed.

He is 25 years old and on Hautacam he confirmed that a star is born.

It was a year ago on Mont Ventoux where he first found out he was capable of defeating the new Cannibal.

The first time he looked back and found that she was picking him up, that his rival was human.

It earned him to be second and to lay the first stone of a rivalry that promises years of glory to cycling.

Vingegaard and Pogacar, hand in hand, after the fall of the Slovenian.TVE

“I was afraid that he would attack me again on the final climb, because I was really going to the limit”, admitted the virtual winner of the Tour, who in Hautacam, the sixth time the Tour had finished there, signed a historic ascent.

He finished it in 36 minutes and 34 seconds.

But since the 90s, a time of question marks, nobody has been so fast (the record is held by his compatriot

, 34:40).

"I was only sure of winning today when

him 4.5 kilometers from the finish line", concluded, however, who was also crowned with the red polka dot Mountain jersey.

Outside of last year's Coppi and Bartali International Week, Vingegaard had never won a stage race.

His record, which opens in a big way (in addition to the general, two stages and the Mountain), included partial victories in this year's Dauphiné, the UAE Tour and the Tour of Poland.

At the age of 23, Pogacar, on the other hand, broke an impressive streak: 11 times he had been the leader of a round and 11 times he had achieved the final victory.

From the Volta al Algarve in 2019 to the Tour of Slovenia a few weeks ago, two Tours along the way.

Pogacar congratulates Vingegaard on the Hautacam finish.

«I gave everything today thinking about the general.

I'm going to finish the race with nothing to regret.

There is still a stage that I can win before reaching Paris, and I am going to try to get it, "acknowledged the defeated, thinking about the Rocamadour time trial.

Thinking perhaps also already in the rematch, the fuel that feeds the greatest.

Ruminating what

said about failure: «Victories do not make us feel as good as defeats make us feel bad».

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