And so here we are, the eve of a Tour de France queen stage, a once-a-year event that has proven to be Tadej Pogačar’s undoing in each of the past two editions: first came the Col du Granon in 2022, and then the Col de la Loze in 2023. Will Isola 2000 add to his nightmare collection?
Going into stage 19, a 145km ride with more than 4,500m of climbing, UAE Team Emirates’s Pogačar has a lead of 3:11 to Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard, the man who has delivered those most brutal of defeats. For Vingegaard, the defending champion, to make it a hat-trick of queen stage triumphs, he’s going to have to go deeper than ever before and produce a performance that supersedes his other masterclasses.
