Tadej Pogacar slashed Jonas Vingegaard’s lead in the Tour de France by a further eight seconds and is now 17 seconds adrift of the Tour’s first rest day.
In the ninth stage of 21, 36-year-old Canadian Michael Woods caught up with American Matteo Jorgenson and overtook him in the last kilometer of the Puy de Dôme climb, which is beyond the category. According to ProCyclingStats.com, he became the oldest stage winner since Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov in 2010.
Jorgenson, 24, was the sole leader for almost 30 miles. He nearly became the first American to win a Tour summit finish stage since George Hincapie in 2005 and the youngest American to win a Tour stage since Lance Armstrong in 1995. In the end he was fourth on the day.
“Super disappointing,” Jorgenson said. “I played my cards. I think I did the best race I could. … I came to this tour with some doubts about my form and legs. I had a great spring. I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, by how much I had in the tank.”
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Behind him, the last two tour winners and favorites dueled again in the fight for this year’s title. With about a mile to go, Pogacar and Vingegaard from their group of five attacked and then the Slovenian Pogacar outpaced Vingegaard to gain time on the Dane for the second time in as many mountain stages.
“It is not [stage] “Win, but it’s a small win,” said Pogacar. “When I start an attack, I watch the shadow of it [Vingegaard] and I could see him sprinting full throttle after me. I feel like my legs are fine. I push more. The gap opened.”
Vingegaard’s lead over Pogacar, who was 53 seconds after stage five, is now 17 seconds.
The Tour has a rest day on Monday, followed by the hilliest stage on Tuesday with five categorized climbs, with the toughest being category two.
“I don’t think I had my best day today,” Vinegaard said. “Maybe the rest day will do me good.
“I reckon it’s going to be quite a struggle over the next two weeks.”
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