Tour de France: Van Aert storms to victory as Pogacar seals his second overall title

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Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) stormed to victory on the penultimate stage of the Tour de France winning the 30.8-kilometre time trial between Liborne and Saint-Emilion on Saturday. 

The Belgian put in a thoroughly dominant performance, setting the fastest times at both intermediate time checks before eventually crossing the line with a winning time of 35:53. 

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished the stage in eighth and safely came home to all but seal his second straight Tour de France. Barring a major incident, the Slovenian will ride into Paris on Sunday to be crowned the 2021 Tour de France winner.

Van Aert finished 21 seconds ahead of early pacesetter Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to deny the Dane his first Tour stage win.

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) finished third on the stage and secured his second place overall with another sterling ride in his debut Grand Tour. The result means he is the first Danish rider to finish on the Tour de France podium since Bjarne Riis won the race back in 1996 - which coincidentally also had a time trial to Saint-Emilion on its penultimate stage.

Heading into Paris for the final stage, Pogačar holds a 5:20 lead over Vingegaard with Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) in third at 7:03. None of the top-ten riders in the overall standings changed positions in the time trial.

Pogačar, who won the first time trial in the race on stage 5, was far from his electrifying best, perhaps knowing that his margin over his rivals was so clear-cut that he could afford to dial down the gears and ride a conservative race. The same wasn't true for Van Aert who looked to be back to his blistering best against the clock.

Already a winner on the Mont Ventoux stage the Belgian was three seconds faster than Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) at the first time check at 7km and only extended that as the course unfolded. He was 24 seconds up at the second check at 20.1km and whereas Küng cooked and then crumbled in the final section Van Aert simply kept his power in check and eventually came home with a healthy winning margin.

"Winning the Tour de France time trial has been one of my biggest objectives in my career. I was really focused on this day in the last couple of days and I'm so happy I could finish it off," Van Aert said at the finish.

"Compared to the first TT it was more rolling and faster. With my weight, it was more to my advantage than the first one, which was punchier. I think it was a perfect day.

"It was definitely the hot seat in the first couple of minutes because I was completely overheated after the effort. Afterwards, it was always stressful, but I guess I had a nice margin on the specialists and when I saw the intermediates of the GC guys my hopes were rising. 

"It's been a really hard Tour de France for our team, but we always fought through and in the end, we have three stage wins and Jonas in second in GC which is an amazing result with only four guys left. I'm really proud of how we fought."

The biggest smile, however, was reserved for Pogačar, who at the age of just 22 already has two Tour de France titles to his name. The first was somewhat of a shock, a victory deserved but snatched in the final time trial, yet his defence was an entirely different ride with the Slovenian able to distance his rivals in the mountains with jaw-dropping ease after a blistering time trial on stage 5 put him head and shoulders above a world-class field.

How it unfolded

After 19 stages of racing the Tour de France headed into the penultimate day of racing with very little to play for in terms of the overall standings. The top 10 were relatively spaced out but there was still the small matter of a stage win up for grabs as the specialists headed out for the second test against the clock since the race left Brest three weeks ago.

Tour de France debutant Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo) set the pace early on with a time of 36:37, with Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) and Max Walscheid (Qhubeka-NextHash) both inside the top three but it was Asgreen who laid down the most impressive marker in the early stages. The Dane was six seconds up at the first time check and extended his lead to 23 seconds at the 20.1km split. 

Küng, who was beaten in the first test by Pogacar on stage 5, was ideally suited to the course and he managed to edge ahead of Asgreen at the first check. However, the Groupama-FDJ rider’s advantage has dropped to less than half a second by the second check and worse was to follow in the final 10km with Küng succumbing to his initial pace strategy and slipping back to second on the line.

By the time the GC riders were on the road, it was clear that Van Aert was a cut above but behind him, the margins varied from rider to rider.

Vingegaard looked rapid as he rattled through the few technical sections out on the course while Alexey Lutsenko, Carapaz, and Wilco Kelderman all put in solid performances. Ben O’Connor dug in to keep his impressive fourth place on GC while Guillaume Martin, Pello Bilbao and Rigoberto Uran all did enough to retain their top-10 places ahead of Paris.