The chances of Remco Evenepoel bettering his third place in the Tour de France last year suffered a major hit after the Soudal-Quickstep rider lost contact with his rivals as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) attacked to leave Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) behind en route to Hautacam.
Evenepoel ended up losing 3:35 to Pogačar but still held onto third place overall.
He had already been in trouble on an earlier climb, the Col de Soulor. The Belgian lost contact more than 7km from the top but his directeur sportif got on the radio to encourage him, saying there would be more riders dropped.
"On the first climb, he really… was he overheated? I don't know, but he really had to let it go, and he really had to re-find himself," Soudal-Quickstep DS Tom Steels said to TNT Sports.
"But then after that he really started to cruise again. He did incredibly fast descents, and then he came back in the group. He always had to set his own pace today, so he didn't have that turbo going on, and the acceleration he could directly not follow, but he could just set his own pace like a TT, he did almost 50km alone today.
"He didn't break, but of course you expect a little bit more, but it's good that he hung on a didn't let it go today."
When yellow jersey holder Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) lost touch three kilometres later into the climb, the GC standings swung back in favour of Pogačar, who began the stage 29 seconds behind Healy in second overall.
The yellow jersey came into Evenepoel's view over the summit, giving the Belgian more motivation to fight. He caught Healy and left him behind as he set out in pursuit to keep his hopes intact.
On the next climb, the category 2 Col des Borderes, the gap was down to 20 seconds and dropping. Evenepoel then managed to latch onto the Pogačar-Vingegaard group with 28km to go.
But the mighty hors-category climb to Hautacam loomed in the distance and would nearly be Evenepoel's undoing.
As UAE Team Emirates-XRG lit up the pace with 12km to go to Hautacam, Pogačar surged away from Vingegaard and the rest, sweeping past the leader Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) a kilometre later.
Unable to respond, Evenepoel set a steady pace but was soon a minute behind Pogačar, and Vingegaard was quickly wiping out the 17-second advantage that Evenepoel started the stage with.
"After the descent he came back, then he revived a bit, but it was just that acceleration he doesn't have in the legs," Steels said. "But it's still a long way, so if he can just improve, if he doesn't lose too much time tomorrow, it's still a long Tour.
"Of course those two are really exceptionally strong, but we're still in the fight for the podium.".
At the finish, Vingegaard came through the line 2:10 behind Pogačar, Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was third, while Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) out-paced Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNl) for fourth at 2:23.
Fortunately for Evenepoel, Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost more time, putting Evenepoel into third overall in the virtual standings. Evenepoel, knowing Healy was well and truly dropped, then made sure to keep a close eye on Vauquelin to maintain his podium hopes.
Vauquelin out-sprinted Evenpoel for sixth on the day, with the Belgian finishing in 3:35, dropping to third overall now 4:45 behind Pogačar. Lipowitz moved into fourth at 5:34.
Now, Evenepoel is eyeing the 10.9km mountain time trial on Friday to try to distance those in fighting distance of the podium.
"You can also gain time. If he recovers well, it probably suits him quite OK," Steels said. "We saw today that's not so far from the best, or from the group that he's fighting against, so let's see.
"He is a master in TT. The (flat) first three kilometres will give him some benefit, and then just up the climb, one pace, a hard pace, and then we'll see where we are. Then we also see how the other ones will do. So [we are] looking forward to tomorrow and happy we survived."
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