Tadej Pogacar listened to the voice of the mountain

The road that climbed the mountain from Ayros-Arbouix to Hautacam was met with applause and cheers from everyone, but a single voice invoked one name above all: Pogasciar . It was calling out to him, it was him the people wanted to see ahead. Almost a plea to the god of cycling who inhabits the mountains.

Tadej Pogacar decided to listen to the voice of the mountain, he decided to honor the affection of that human snake that occupied the edges (and not only) of the strip of asphalt that climbed towards the plateau just below the summit of the mountain that looks down on Lourdes and the valley marked by the Ouysse.

He's popular, he's beloved, for this reason too. Because he's incapable of discriminating against enthusiasts who haven't managed to climb to the top of the mountains.

The climb to Hautacam was the place where the illusions ended for those who believed, or perhaps only hoped, that the communion of talent, the sum of team strengths, could prevail over the world champion's desire for victory.

The Haucatam climb was above all a slap in the face to those who thought the first stage up and down the Pyrenees would be the site of the first duel, finally on equal terms, between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard . Their shoulder-to-shoulder, wheel-to-wheel dance under the Pyrenean peaks lasted a few hundred meters, behind the violent pace of Jhonatan Narváez. Then Tadej Pogacar accelerated again, Jonas Vingegaard did not. For half a kilometer, the Dane gave the impression that he could, albeit from a distance, keep pace with the Slovenian. This was not the case. Tadej Pogacar gifted himself twelve kilometers of solitude, an absolute demonstration of superiority . He crossed the finish line wearing the reserved yellow jersey and pointing to the sky, with a smile on his face and sad eyes: “I thought about Samuele ( Privitera, who died yesterday after falling in the first stage of the Giro della Valle d'Aosta , ed. ) in the last few kilometers, I thought about how tough our sport can be, how terrible it can be and this victory is all for his family,” he said.

At the finish, Jonas Vingegaard's gap was two minutes and ten seconds ; Florian Lipowitz, third, was two minutes and twenty-three seconds; Tobias Halland Johannessen and Oscar Onley lost three minutes; Kévin Vauquelin ( who continues to be the unexpected element of this Tour de France ) three minutes and thirty-three; Remco Evenepoel three minutes and thirty-five.

Paradoxically, after the finish, the Belgian looked more serene than the Dane. Because on the Col du Soulor, the first climb of the day, Remco Evenpoel nearly abandoned any hope of a podium finish in the Pyrenees . The pace set by Jonas Vingegaard's teammates had worn him down, and the sun beating down on everyone's head had done the rest. He lost one position after another, and then also the slipstream of the few survivors of the small group led first by Victor Campenaerts and then by Seep Kuss. At that same moment, Tadej Pogacar also grimaced in annoyance.

The Pyrenees are a strange place, always prone to melodrama, capable of giving the eyes wonder and desolation, of dazzling the gaze by creating visions filled with unreality .

Visma | Lease a bike seemed to be burning with revolutionary thoughts, first melting, then dissolving. Just like Ineos's morning dreams, which began with a thumping team attack to propel Carlos Rodríguez toward the podium, only to find themselves confronted with the Spaniard's mountainous inconsistency. Remco Evenepoel seemed to be sinking at the tail end of the strongest group, but he clung to his tenacity and continued to float, perhaps distant and at odds with his imagination, but nonetheless distant from the nightmares that had haunted him for a few kilometers.

Climbing toward the Col du Soulor, the heat and fatigue faded the yellow of Ben Healy's jersey . The Irishman poured liters and liters of water over himself, trying to cling to the hope that the difficulties would pass, and surrendering to the evidence that he has much to improve on long climbs. He hadn't come to the Tour de France to win it, or even to attempt a top ten finish. He had attacked breakaway after breakaway , taking responsibility for chasing the fifty riders who had escaped from the peloton, and honoring the symbol of the record as best he could. Now he'll start thinking about how to make his already exceptional Grande Boucle even more exceptional.

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