As if we didn’t know it already, a week is a long time at the Tour de France. When Tadej Pogačar won atop La Planche des Belles Filles on stage 7 to buttress his overall lead, this race appeared destined to follow a markedly similar plot to last year. The Slovenian, it seemed, again had free rein to win in whatever way he pleased.
In the seven days since, Pogačar has instead experienced something novel on the Tour: losing. First, he lost two teammates to positive tests for COVID-19. Then he lost the yellow jersey and three minutes to Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) on the Col du Granon on stage 11. And now he has, at least temporarily, lost the aura of invincibility that made him the almost unbackable favourite to win a third successive Tour.
After weathering Jumbo-Visma’s onslaught on the Télégraphe and Galibier, Pogačar’s strength suddenly deserted him in the final five kilometres of the Granon. He limited the damage as best he could, but the swing of time and momentum in Vingegaard’s favour was substantial. The atmosphere in the UAE Team Emirates hotel that evening could only have been muted.
“We were bummed and Tadej was obviously disappointed, but there wasn’t negative energy or any of this,” Brandon McNulty said. “You take it as it is. Some days you win, some days you lose. We keep the same attitude and the same mindset.”
McNulty is one of Pogačar’s key climbing domestiques on this Tour, but the American, like his leader, has endured a trying second week. He was quickly distanced by Jumbo-Visma’s long-range assault on the Galibier, but even though Marc Soler and Rafal Majka later scrambled back up to Pogačar’s side, the Slovenian was heavily outnumbered by Vingegaard’s cohort in the finale.
“It’s been a bit up and down, I was feeling really good the first week and then the first day after of the rest day I was good, but on the Granon day I was a bit empty and it was super hard,” McNulty said. “I’ve been suffering the last few days, but I think I’ll be able to come back up next week for the Pyrenees, I hope.”
With George Bennett forced out of the race ahead of the Alps after his COVID-19 diagnosis, McNulty’s importance to the cause has only increased. “There’s a little more pressure on the climbing guys like me, Majka and Soler,” he said. “But now I just need to focus on recovering and being as fresh as possible next week.”
Twelve months ago, the relative strength of Pogačar’s supporting cast was questioned before the Tour, but his UAE Team Emirates guard dealt comfortably with the burden of defending the yellow jersey for two weeks. Even when Pogačar seized yellow in the first week this time out, however, there were indications that his team might not have the ability to defend it quite as robustly.
Speaking in Saint-Étienne on Friday evening, McNulty acknowledged that being relieved of the duty of defending yellow might have been a minor mercy in the context of Bennett and Vegard Stake Laengen’s withdrawals.
“In a way,” McNulty said. “It sucks to lose the jersey, we would have liked to have kept it, obviously. But then to control stages like this weekend’s, it was going to be a lot. It’s not nice to be two minutes down, but it’s also nice not to have to control the race.”
As in 2020, Jumbo-Visma must now police the peloton, while Pogačar, now 2:22 down in second place, is back in the role of disruptor. In his young career, Pogačar has managed to win on just about every terrain and in just about every way, but overturning this deficit – against this Vingegaard to boot – marks his stiffest challenge to date.
“Last year, we took the jersey early and held it. We’re in a different position now, obviously. It’s a different race, but every race is going to be different, and we’re still here to fight,” said McNulty. “To come back from a deficit like this would be a lot of work, I think. But we’re all up for it.”
It remains to be seen quite where and how Pogačar goes about discommoding Vingegaard, with UAE Team Emirates manager Mauro Gianetti downplaying the idea that Saturday’s haul through the Massif Central to Mende might provide the platform for an ambush. An offensive between now and Paris seems inevitable, mind, and Pogačar’s series of accelerations atop Alpe d’Huez on the day after his Granon setback offered some reassurance.
“I think he really wanted to see where his legs were, just to mentally make sure he was back to where he should be,” McNulty said. “The signs are still positive for him to have a shot to come back. It’s easier said than done to do that, but I’m sure he’ll try.”
