Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images
In the only time trial of the 2023 Tour de France, defending champion Jonas Vingegaard took control
If Jonas Vingegaard goes on to win his second-straight Tour de France in a few days, he and the rest of the cycling world will look back on Tuesday’s Stage 16 as the day he seized control.
Posting, as it was described during the coverage, a “time trial of destruction.”
Tuesday offered the one and only individual time trial of the 2023 Tour de France, featuring a 22.4-kilometer stage and a few different climbs for the riders to tackle including Côte de Domancy. Entering Tuesday, Vingegaard had just a ten-second lead over his rival Tadej Pogacar for the general classification.
But the time trial offered Pogacar a chance for him to whittle away at that advantage, if not grab the yellow jersey outright. History seemed to favor Pogacar as well, as he had defeated Vingegaard six times to three in individual time trials over the course of their rivalry.
However, two of those three wins for Vingegaard had come in the final week of the Tour de France.
Make that three of four.
While Pogacar posted the second-best time of the day, Vingegaard bested his rival by 1’38”, giving him an advantage of 1’48” in the general classification.
A critical moment came midway through the stage for Pogacar. Heading into the climb at the end of the stage, Pogacar made the decision to switch from a time-trial bike to a road bike for the climb:
It was a quick change, costing him just 12 seconds of time, but shortly after Vingegaard reached the same point of the stage and remained on his time trial bike.
And pushed to not just a stage win, but a massive advantage in the general classification:
As Vingegaard closed in on the stage victory, his team advised him over the radio that today would be the day that he “won” the Tour de France. While two mountain stages remain — Stage 17 tomorrow and another mountain section in the penultimate stage — Vingegaard now has a massive lead as the final week begins:
“I think it’s the best time trial I’ve ever done,” said Vingegaard after the stage. “I’m really proud of what I did today and I’m really happy about the victory.”
“I think today I even surprised myself,” added Vingegaard. “It’s my first time trial victory in the Tour de France, and I’m really, really proud.”
“No, there’s still a lot of hard stages to come, so we have to keep fighting,” said Vingegaard on whether the Tour de France had been decided.
The Tour de France has seen some epic comebacks before. In the 1989 Tour de France, Greg LeMond trailed Laurent Fignon by 50 seconds heading into the final stage, an individual time trial. But with Fignon battling saddle sores, LeMond found a way to seize the Tour de France, besting Fignon by eight seconds to claim one of cycling’s greatest come-from-behind wins.
If Pogacar is to capture his third Tour de France, he’ll need something equally epic over the next few stages.
