Past the finish line in Carcassonne, cohorts of television crews and reporters were laying siege to the Jumbo-Visma bus, eager for reaction to a day of tribulations for the squad of race leader Jonas Vingegaard, who lost two teammates and then endured a crash in the finale of stage 15.
Every now and then, the drawbridge would be temporarily laid down and the microphones would surge forward as men like Christophe Laporte emerged to put words on their most trying day of the Tour de France.
Twenty metres down the street, it was all rather more tranquil outside the UAE Team Emirates bus. Tadej Pogačar had reached Carcassonne at the end of stage 15 safely in the peloton, still 2:22 down on Vingegaard in the overall standings. While the Slovenian was at the podium receiving the white jersey of best young rider, his general manager Mauro Gianetti was in a relaxed confab with staff members beneath the shade of a canopy.
UAE Team Emirates have endured their own setbacks on this Tour. They lost Vegard Stake Laengen and George Bennett to positive tests for COVID-19, and Pogačar was left strikingly isolated when Jumbo-Visma launched their successful, collective assault on his overall lead on stage 11 to the Col du Granon.
Now, six stages from the finish, Vingegaard's supporting cast is suddenly as depleted as Pogačar's, following Primoz Roglič's abandon before the start and Steven Kruijswijk's withdrawal after he dislocated his shoulder in a crash outside Revel on Sunday afternoon. They each have five teammates apiece left on the team bus as the Tour breaks for its third and final rest day.
Gianetti appeared less than convinced that the loss of two riders from Vingegaard's team would significantly alter the scale of Pogačar's task in the final week of the Tour. Vingegaard and Pogačar have been the race's clear strongmen since their duel at La Planche des Belles Filles, and Gianetti maintained that their tête-a-tête would ultimately decide the race.
"I don't think it changes the race a lot, because there's a lot of climbing still to come. And when there's a lot of climbing, it comes down in essence to who is the strongest among the leaders," Gianetti told Cyclingnews.
"The battle will be between Pogačar and Vingegaard, and also Yates, Thomas, Bardet and Gaudu. Teammates are important, but the most important thing is the legs of the leaders."
So far in this Tour, Vingegaard has had the better of his exchanges with Pogačar. The defending champion overhauled him in the final metres atop La Planche des Bellies Filles, but since then, Vingegaard has dropped him on the Col du Granon and tracked him smoothly at Alpe d'Huez and again at Mende.
It begs the question: has the world changed or has Pogačar changed? A year ago, the final kilometre of Mont Ventoux aside, he was all but untouchable at the Tour, and he continued in that vein through the first half of 2022, dropping rivals seemingly at will when the road climbed. At this Tour, however, Vingegaard has matched – and even bettered – Pogačar on the climbs. Gianetti insisted that Pogačar's condition was in line with that of his two Tour victories.
"We saw in the first week that Tadej is in excellent condition, he's very good. He had one bad day but before that he had a gap of 40 seconds," Gianetti said. "Vingegaard is Vingegaard: he's not a novelty, and we expected him to be strong here. Last year, in the second part of the Tour, he was [not] in a leadership role and that helped him to learn without pressure. This year, he came here with great physical condition. Vingegaard is clearly at a very high level because Tadej is very good here."
Pogačar's defiant accelerations on Alpe d'Huez offered some reassurance after his crisis on the Granon the previous afternoon, but his failure to discommode Vingegaard in the finale at Mende on Saturday raised the uncomfortable possibility that he may, for this Tour at least, finally have met his match. The Pyrenees, and the summits of Hautacam and Peyragudes, will reveal more.
"We're not worried. We're at the Tour, we might win it again and we might not win it. That's just part of sport and of cycling," Gianetti said. "If Vingegaard is stronger, he'll have deserved it. There's no need to be stressed about it. We just have to race with the spirit of having a go, of realising that we have an opportunity. We have the chance to try to win the Tour, and that's already a lot."
While Jumbo-Visma endured their crisis on Sunday, Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates guard showed some signs of recovery at Mende, where Brandon McNulty and Rafał Majka teed up their leader's inevitable on the Côte de la Croix Neuve. "We still have riders and so have Jumbo," Gianetti said. "But the race will be decided between the leaders in the big climbs."
Pogačar, for his part, demurred from his manager's assessment when he spoke with reporters by the podium area. He had, after all, been left isolated against a phalanx of Jumbo-Visma riders ahead of the Granon last week, while the team in yellow and black dictated affairs most of the way up Alpe d'Huez to boot.
"If we had not lost Vegard and George Bennett, it would already be a different situation," Pogačar said. "Now we're more even, and that's going to be interesting."
