Remco Evenepoel is the man of the moment at the Tour de France. As I write this from the lobby of a Campanile hotel, not far from Geneva, a series of ring-led chants float in from the car park where the Belgian has gathered his teammates and team staff, telling them how much he loves them and letting rip on a bottle of champagne
It’s the second night in three that he has done this, and the second stage in two, with Evenepoel winning back-to-back in this Tour de France either side of the rest day.
What’s more, the rider he has consigned to second place on both occasions is none other than Tadej Pogačar, the cannibalistic four-time champion who, when he’s out for victory, doesn’t usually come up short.
But if you’re sensing a momentum shift in this Tour de France then your radar is very much off. Pogačar botched – or some would say hardly bothered with – the sprint atop the Plateau de Solaison on stage 15, and on stage 16 the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader was beaten on Evenepoel’s home turf, against the clock, in a result that was entirely to be expected.
Not even Evenepoel himself believes the yellow jersey is within his reach in what’s left of this Tour. “Tadej is on his planet, with the others behind. I focus on my second place and will do everything to defend it and stay in my second place – that’s my objective for ending the Tour de France,” Evenepoel stated on Tuesday.
With Jonas Vingegaard’s sudden exit on Sunday removing all tension in the battle for the yellow jersey, the final week has become very much a race for second, and a race for the podium.
In that respect, Evenepoel has seemingly taken a stranglehold on the runner-up spot. Though 4:32 behind Pogačar, he is now 2:19 ahead of third-placed Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and 2:39 ahead of Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), after putting more than a minute into both of them in the stage 16 time trial.
It very much feels like Evenepoel is in the ascendancy. Back-to-back stage wins will do that for you. And while he was always expected to win the time trial, the way he was seemingly floating up the double-digit gradients on the Plateau de Solaison on Sunday was a massively encouraging sign after his yo-yoing efforts in the previous mountain stages.
Evenepoel spoke after the time trial of how his form has been rising in this Tour de France. He made reference to his somewhat controversial lack of racing between the Spring and the Tour, arguing that the first week was about feeling his way into the race and the last week about truly hitting his stride.
If he’s as good as his word, then you’re looking at your second-place finisher at the Tour de France.
And yet, this is far, far from a foregone conclusion.
Three big mountain stages await and they will be a stern test of Evenepoel’s credentials, both physically and tactically.
On the physical side, it’s fair to point out that Evenepoel has not always been the most consistent high-mountain climber. He has won the Vuelta a España and podiumed at the Tour, so his GC credentials cannot seriously be questioned, but he is prone to having bad days as well as good days. We’ve seen it already in this Tour, sometimes within the same stage.
On that note, it was interesting that Pogačar noted that Sunday’s stage, boiling down to one final climb, suited Evenepoel, but that he struggled comparatively on Saturday’s multi-mountain stage in the Vosges. Stages 18 and 19 of this Tour, finishing at Orcières-Merlette and Alpe d’Huez respectively, look similar but the final mountain stage on Saturday is a different beast, with three hors-catégorie climbs and one category-1 climb on the menu.
It’s a crazy stage, where any weakness can be punished by minutes, and it’s a risk not just for Evenepoel but for all involved.
'Race within a race'
Realistically, there are two other fighters in the battle for the final two spots on the podium: Del Toro and Seixas (Juan Ayuso is two minutes further back after the TT and appears to be on the decline). And like Evenepoel, they too have been inconsistent in this Tour. Del Toro won a stage early on and has been right up there in the past two mountain stages, but the Mexican has also been dropped from the GC group on numerous occasions – in the Massif Central on stage 10 he lost a minute to Evenepoel and Seixas.
For his part, Seixas, who rode a contained start to the Tour, appeared to be emerging from his shell and moving through the gears in the Vosges on stage 14, only to slip back and lose that momentum at Solaison on stage 15. With Seixas, the uncertainty is even greater, given this is, remarkably, his debut Grand Tour. Whatever happens now, it has been a success for the teenager and every day is effectively a step further into the unknown at this point.
And so we have three riders who, unlike Pogačar, are unpredictable in terms of their performance in the remaining mountains. Evenepoel certainly holds the upper hand by far, but big swings in fortune would not be a surprise, and so it still feels open at this point.
And then there’s the tactical equation.
In this respect, once the glow of his time trial victory wears off, Evenepoel might start to rue the day his best teammate, Florian Lipowitz, exited the race in a crash. The pair have had their frictions but Evenepoel had already taken enough of a nudge in front for Lipowitz to declare his loyalty to his teammate’s cause even in advance of the TT, and he was set to be a crucial crutch in the final week.
With Jai Hindley, Red Bull’s next-best climber, not firing on all cylinders, this leaves Evenepoel somewhat isolated in the closing stages. Now that might not ordinarily be a problem if this was a Pogačar vs Vingegaard battle, and Evenepoel was in another race behind them, but the latter’s absence has upended the tactical complexion of this race.
We saw it immediately on the climb to the Plateau de Solaison. Pogačar, without his main rival to worry about, immediately turned domestique and worked almost the entire climb for Del Toro. It’s bizarre seeing the yellow jersey do this, but it puts Del Toro in a luxury position.
The other factor to consider is the white jersey, for which Del Toro and Seixas (and also Ayuso) are eligible.
“It will be a nice race within a race,” said Evenepoel, who will surely hope that Del Toro and Seixas simply ride against one another, with that white jersey and the final podium spot effectively settled in the same breath.
When the organisers pitched this Tour route, they spoke of ‘suspense to the end’, and compared to the two Alpine stages that come before it, that final one over the Croix de Der, Télégraphe, Galibier and Sarenne very much feels like judge, jury and executioner. It may not represent that in the fight for the yellow jersey anymore, but it still does in a fight for the podium that very much remains open-ended and intriguing.
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